


closer

by sidnihoudini



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-02
Updated: 2009-02-02
Packaged: 2017-11-26 03:21:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 54,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/646002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidnihoudini/pseuds/sidnihoudini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind crossover/remix.  </p>
<p>"No, we still keep in touch,"  Jared smiles, hand curled loosely around the end of his mic.  He nods again, because he feels like he should reiterate the point.  "We talk all the time."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"No, we still keep in touch," Jared smiles, hand curled loosely around the end of his mic. He nods again, because he feels like he should reiterate the point. "We talk all the time."

 

.

 

Which, y'know. Isn't exactly the truth. Cause you know, man. Five years changes a lot, what is that, it's like, half a decade, and Jared's got commitments, now. Premieres and shit that he has to attend, and it's not like he could just go on hanging around Vancouver forever.

He grins enough to show the molars at the back of his mouth, and slings an arm loosely around George Clooney's shoulders.

George Clooney. Y'know. Batman. They had dinner together last night, and that's cool. Jared never woulda done that in Vancouver.

He squints against all of the flash bulbs going off on the other side of the fence, purple spots starting in at the edges of his vision, and laughs, pretending that someone somewhere said something that might've been funny enough for him to throw his head back like he's just saw a hundred dollar bill hanging behind him from the ceiling.

"George's people aren't happy," His assistant tells him, after, close to breathless as they jog down a back hallway together, towards the press room. "They want you to chill on the buddy buddy thing."

Jared makes a sour face, and stops short to fiddle around with the mic clipped into the hem of his Lacoste button down.

"He can buddy buddy himself, then," He tells her, decision made just as simple as that, then tugs the mic until it unclips itself.

His assistant is left standing there in the empty hallway, holding a mic, all of its fixings, and her stacked clipboard.

"Fuck," She sighs, so tired of this, as she starts back towards the green room with one hand on her forehead.

Jared gets his driver on the line, by himself, thank you, and is back in the safety of his black tinted SUV before Katie even figures out how she's gonna tell the producers that he's left.

 

.

 

The next morning, the most popular story on TMZ is, 'Padalecki: It's My Party, I Won't Show Up if I Wanna.'

 

.

 

Jensen's waiting at the order counter in Starbucks when he sees Sandy for the first time in eight years.

Which is, y'know. Awkward. Considering.

"Nuh-uh!" She laughs, fucking radiant as she ever was, with her two rows of white teeth parting into an open mouthed grin as she touches his elbow softly, her fingers curving against the sleeve of his button down. "Jensen! It's been, what? Five years? No!"

He smiles back and palms the counter with one hand, licks his lips as he gathers both his balls back together and then replies, "It's been a while, huh?"

He had been going for casual, but that plan goes right out the window when he jerks his head back awkwardly, to smile at the barista pushing over his iced coffee and straw. It leaves damp streaks behind on the lightly grained counter, but Sandy notices that as much as she does Jensen's general social ineptitude.

"It's been too long!" She exclaims. If the first thing he notices is how pretty Sandy she looks, the second thing he sees is the gold wedding band snug around her finger. With the way she keeps touching all over his forearm, it'd be kinda hard to miss. "How's Jared? How are you guys?"

Jensen licks his lips again and then smiles with both of them tucked into his teeth. How she doesn't know yet, he's got no fucking clue.

"I hear he's alright," He replies, vague as ever, then motions down to her hand. "But you, huh?..."

She flaps her hand around and goes into a chattery explanation about this guy she met in Prague when she was over doing this and filming that, and Jensen stands there sipping his iced coffee like the dumb fuck who only gets series bit parts in Canadian productions, and they do that until her chai latte comes up and they part ways, promising to meet up again.

 

.

 

He has no idea how she didn't hear. He's pretty sure his sister's unborn kid will come out with the whole story in tact, every gory detail kept in there, somewhere.

 

.

 

Besides Ellen and Portia, they were really the first high profile gay couple to do the 'ole Californian ball and chain routine.

Fuck, and that had been dog's years ago. Jensen's momma probably still has the invite tucked away, somewhere. For the first two years of what Jensen now refers to as his own personal gong show, she'd had it framed in her own damn living room, sitting right there on top of the TV. Which had embarrassed Jensen at the time, and rightly so, especially since Jared had found the whole situation hilarious.

The part Jensen actually found funny was how content he'd lulled himself into being: every Christmas return trip down to Texas the same old stories came out, Jared would laugh and point at the invitation, kiss his momma on the cheek and sit beside Jensen at the dining room table to eat their green beans and potatoes and ham.

They'd had a mortgage, for fucks sake. A real mortgage on a real house in a very real suburb in Vancouver, a little on the high brow side but home none the less. Their living room had a gas fireplace and they'd put the flat screen in above that, they'd had their wedding pictures framed on a side table, and if owning a side table wasn't the most ineffectual part of being a married man, Jensen didn't know what was.

He's pretty sure he'd ended up taking an axe to that stupid fucking piece of furniture two days before they'd split up the rest of their belongings and Jared had moved back down to L.A. This new couple with googly eyes for each other moved into the home, and Jensen bought a condo in English Bay, right on the water, alongside all the retirees and empty summer condos.

So, you know. Jensen was lulled into a sincerity in thinking his life would get better with age.

Not entirely the truth. Sure, it wasn't exactly terrible now, but seven years ago was a lot better. From what he could remember, at least, but maybe he'd just forgotten all of the bad stuff already, anyways.

 

.

 

Jared had proposed in the heat of summer, when Jensen had succumbed to walking around in flip flops for once, picking all the dead heads off of the two flower beds they'd actually managed to get growing in the back yard.

He'd been standing there, with a hose in one hand and Harley trying to bite the fingers off of his other one, while Jensen had stooped over to pick up a rogue chew toy. And Jared had just said, hose water dripping all over his bare feet, in front of God and the patch of bright green grass he was standing on, "Pretty sure I'm gonna marry you one day, man."

Jensen had stood up straight, shaking a dead ladybug shell off of the dog toy.

 

.

 

And that had been that.

 

.

 

He flies to New York City the next day to do all of the morning talk shows, and then David Letterman. Conan O'Brien is the next night, and during the day he does a dress rehearsal for Saturday Night Live. They dress him up like a pork chop and his entire opening monologue is peppered with gay jokes, which he doesn't really mind, because it's not like it's a big secret anymore.

Jared is cool with everything, even the skit that has him acting like a giant fag dancing to Barry White, yeah he's cool with everything, until they tell him they're gonna dress Kristen Wiig up in drag and have her play his shorter, older, less famous 'significant other.'

"I don't know," He says, shaking his head as he looks over the script. There are parts that are highlighted, but he doesn't know what they denote or mean. "It's kinda..." He trails off, and feels awkward and nauseous and all kinds of shitty things as the writer stares back at him, waiting. Jared blinks back at her. "It's sort of in bad taste, man. You know?"

She shakes her head and grabs the script out of his hand, pointing this and that out, saying, I know what you're thinking. I know what you're thinking, but this is what it'll translate to screen as, and this is what it's going to actually look like when we shoot it, she won't look like Jensen at all.

Well, she doesn't say 'Jensen' in so many words, but it's implied. Everything is implied.

"Alright," He finally says, still mostly sitting on the fence as he scratches at the back of his neck. He looks over at his assistant, and she looks kind of choked at him, but she usually looks some shade of pissed off these days, anyways. Jared looks back at the writer. "Can you put her in like, a black wig or something, though? Give her some dreads?"

The writer looks at him with an expression that says you're pretty and you're stupid, and then leads him over to one of the sound stages.

 

.

 

Jensen's got a schedule, now. Sunday is for sleeping, and sleeping only. Monday is the day he gets groceries and goes to the bank. Tuesdays are usually alright for reading scripts, and eating most of the food he bought on Monday. Wednesday he goes to the gym, and maybe takes a run around the block. Thursday and Friday he tries to find someone to hang out with on Saturday night, and on Saturday he usually ends up sitting alone on his couch, flipping between repeats of The Simpsons and the newest episode of Saturday Night Live.

Which brings him to this current moment in the fabric of time, sprawled out on his couch, with a beer in one hand, and a single serving of Orville Redenbacher microwaveable popcorn in the other. Overall, it's an appropriate way to cap of a socially awkward week.

He missed the opening monologue and possibly the first sketch, but he cracks into his popcorn regardless, and gets a nice handful in his mouth just as Jared wanders on screen in a pair of black tights and a bikini top.

And then he's sitting there, chewing soundlessly, feeling just a little bit sea sick as the popcorn suddenly doesn't taste like much of anything, and he decides to just chug his beer instead.

Everybody keeps telling him that he should get some counseling, so he doesn't start resenting Jared anymore than he already does.

Jensen reaches for the remote and turns off the TV, gets up from the couch, and leaves his beer on the table.

Everybody should start shutting the fuck up, he thinks.

 

.

 

Kristen Wiig has Anne of Green Gables style freckles penciled over the bridge of her nose, keeps her eyes open comically wide the entire sketch, and makes sure to stagger her legs, crooked at the knee in a way that makes her look like a bona fide cowboy.

During the commercial break, while he's alternating between chugging a bottle of water and changing into the next costume, Jared doesn't say anything. Through the next sketch with Fred Armisen, Jared grits his teeth and acts like a Hollywood douche bag because the script calls for it. He introduces the musical guest after the next break, and then runs to makeup to get ready for Weekend Update.

It's when he's sitting in the makeup chair that he finally snaps, both legs tangled up on the counter in front of his body as he stares himself down in the mirror.

"It's not my fault, you know," He bitches at his makeup artist's reflection, as he scowls and crosses his arms over his chest like a petulant child who's been told that no, candy is not for dinner. She eyes him in the mirror but doesn't say a word. "Maybe I'm only a douche bag because that's what everybody's expecting of me, anyway."

After that she acts a lot like she just didn't hear him, which Jared figures is complete bull shit anyways, and then almost scalps him with her comb.

 

.

 

Things really started going to shit when Jared's ego started to get as big as his dick.

Jensen remembers it pretty well, actually. Standing in the kitchen of the old homestead, wearing his glasses and a pair of flannel pants that had one of the hems completely ripped off the leg. Jared was pacing back and forth in the dining room, so it must've been before he'd had it converted into an office. He'd been so close that Jensen could hear each bullshit word coming out of Jared's big talkin' mouth.

"They just said on the news that Palin got rushed at a signing in Chicago," Jensen had said as Jared ventured back into the room, looking all hot tempered around the collar and tense through the shoulders. He pointed the knife he was trying to butter his toast with at the TV over by the kitchen table, then made a reach for his orange juice.

Jared had waved him off and scowled, storming through the room and down the hallway, making a bee line for the upstairs staircase.

"Who gives a fuck," Jensen was pretty sure he might've sworn he'd heard Jared grumble, before jogging up the steps, skipping every second one.

 

.

 

This time, Jensen finds out that he's been parodied on Saturday Night Live through Steve, which is great. Totally doesn't make him feel like a complete fucking tool for ever knowing and loving Jared at all.

"Thought you should hear it sooner than later, man," Steve had sighed, sounding all put out for him, which Jensen kind of appreciated in a self deprecating way. "And it's better you hear it from me before someone else."

Jensen's propped up in a kitchen chair. He had been going through and purging some old text messages when Steve had called him, and now Jensen is just glad that he'd turned the channel when he did.

"And after all this time that dude is still a douche bag, Jen," Chris had just kept on going before Jensen even got to get his input in. "And I tell you what, it don't surprise me at all."

Rolling his eyes, Jensen leans back and says, "Good to know you were right all along then, man. Thanks for that."

"Cause that's exactly what I meant," Steve snorts at him. "I'm just sayin', that -- "

Jensen interrupts him and sighs, "Well just stop sayin'." He pauses when Steve makes another noise at him and mulls it over in his mind, trying to decide whether he should say what's on the tip of his tongue. It couldn't get any worse, so. "I ran into Sandy the other day."

Steve lights something, hopefully just a cigarette cause it sounds an awful lot like he's driving, and snorts a laugh. "Oh yeah? She still a bitch?"

"Get over it," Jensen smirks, palming the table top, cool against his hand. "Just 'cause she shot you down while she was technically still engaged to Jared doesn't mean shit, you know. She's a good girl."

Another sarcastic snort from Steve, and the squeal of his break pad as he comes to a tight stop. "Crazy bitch was smart enough to lose that jackass before shit really went down, I guess." He pauses, and exhales carefully, like he's studying the cherry. "Couldn't be bad, then."

"You're such a douche bag," Jensen says fondly, stretching his legs out. "She's still as fucking beautiful as ever. Doin' really well, too. Met some new guy in Prague."

Steve doesn't even stop to take a second and think before he's saying, "Maybe you should go to Prague."

"Maybe I will," Jensen echoes, actually thinking about it.

He hears the total insincerity in Steve's voice as he says, "Well just don't get too far, buddy, cause y'know how much we'd miss you."

 

.

 

The next day, Jensen is still seriously weighing his global options when he realizes that there's a paparazzi following him.

"Jensen, Jensen," The guy calls. He has a Spanish accent and he's wearing a bandanna under a skullcap, which Jensen can see just perfect being that he's coming at him from across the street. "What were you watching Saturday night, huh?"

Jensen licks his lips and steps close enough to be some lady's shadow as he hurries down the street. He knows it's pointless to even try to avoid them, that they'll just on and on until he finally snaps and gives in with something angry and worthwhile. And maybe that's where he and Jared were always the most different. Jensen's momma had taught him to have some class.

"I'm not saying anything," Jensen tells him, looking right into the camera lens. Then he looks up and over at the photographer, and holds his stare for a minute, too. He looks amused, and Jensen knows it's at his expense. "So don't bother."

 

.

 

Maybe Jared's favorite photograph is still the one that has all of his old Vancouver buddies in it. It had been taken during the last summer shooting Supernatural, and Chad had been up for the weekend. Tom had even hauled his ass over, and a bunch of the sound guys that Jared had forged friendships with over the years were hanging out, too. And then there was Jensen, Jensen's sister, and a girl that Jared doesn't remember real good but is still pretty sure was one of Mackenzie's friends.

The photo Jared likes the best was taken in their old place, in the kitchen before they got it remodeled, and sometime during the year before he got the dining room converted into his home office. They'd all been a little wasted and a lot happy, Jensen had been holding onto a Rock Band guitar covered in stickers, he had been laughing up at Jared from the floor.

And that's all Jared needs to remember about the picture to make his mouth go sour and spit sick.

 

.

 

Jensen's working a gig this week, playing a hardened soldier in another one of Paul Gross' dumb war movies. He knows he's getting all the roles Callum Keith Rennie used to get, but that dude is dead now, and Jensen is just happy to be getting a paycheck to cover his mortgage.

On his break, he sits down in one of the chairs next to the catering table to eat his lunch and read his tabloids, the glossy on one knee, and his chicken Parmesan container on the other. Britney's on the cover and Miley's got another one of the main features, but Jensen really just likes to read about how the stars are just like him. His second favorite thing are the nipple slips.

Which doesn't make him any worse of a person than he was before, really.

He finishes his chicken and recycles the container, then rolls his tabloid up and tucks it into the back pocket of his uniform for the trek across set, back over to where they're wrapping shooting today. Maybe he doesn't have a trailer, and maybe today's not only his first day but also his last day, too, but at least he isn't making the B list Hollywood circles yet, and as long as he can stay up here and out of California, he figures he'll be happy.

He should be happy.

 

.

 

They started hooking up between the first season, and when they got renewed for the second. It had started off as a bit of Canadian nookie that was featuring neither fan nor actress of the week, and it was hot and they were both best friends, so it worked out. Neither of them had expected to actually fall in love with each other, or for the show to get picked up again and again. Both of those things happened in one fast, jolting summer that came after the second season started shooting.

Back then Jensen chose to blame it on the fresh air and aimed to play it cool the whole way. Jared fell fast and hard and deeply, and made it his business to make it Jensen's business, too. And he did, he worked Jensen over until he couldn't see straight unless Jared's hand was on his back, guiding, until he didn't know up from down unless he could watch Jared lead the way for the both of them -- but, mostly, he made it so Jensen couldn't figure out where his life was headed unless he could see Jared in there somewhere, too.

And maybe that was when it had all really started to go to shit.

 

.

 

"You're in too deep, brother," Chris used to tell him.

Usually Jared would be in the other room, and the two of them would be in the kitchen while Jensen got the dinner out of the oven or finished dialing for the pizza or accidentally knocked their beer over in the fridge. Usually they'd be able to hear Jared tawlk-ing about whatever the hell it was that he used to be so passionate about in the other room, and Jensen would have to narrow his eyes to slits and frown and ssshhhttt at Chris with a dirty look on his face.

Chris just used to snicker and duck his head down so he could laugh behind his shoulder and beer bottle while Jared came back into the room, that dimpled grin on his face as he headed straight for Jensen to pat his shoulder or touch the back of his head, hover close over his back just to see what he was doing and how it was getting done.

Jensen could usually still hear Chris laughing to himself, by himself behind them, but by the time he'd usually manage to turn around with Jared lurking around behind him, over him, Chris'd usually be gone already and only the empty stool would be left. Headed off to the other room to claim the best seat of the first controller or whatever the fuck they used to care about so much when they were that young.

Which Jensen didn't really consider himself at the time, young, and that was funny to look back when you were 39 or 40 or 41 or 42.

Especially now, when Jensen is just a bitter old man who still hates the fact that Chris had been right about them all along.

 

.

 

Jared first notices it in the photo stuck to the refrigerator door.

It's just, he could've swore Harley had been in there, hanging around Jared's feet with his big dumb dog grin and tongue hanging out of his mouth all over the place.

It had been one of the reasons Jared had even bothered to stick it up there in the first place.

"Huh," Jared says, to nobody in particular, with his bottle of water in one hand as he reaches over with the other and plucks the photo off of the stainless steel. He wasn't in New York for that long, was he?

Sipping at his water with one eye still lingering on the photo, Jared sets it down on the counter top instead of putting it back, and doesn't give it much more thought.

 

.

 

Jensen had always been a little weary of relationships.

His parents had never been all that healthy together, which Jensen hadn't even realized until he was somewhere in his mid twenties. His sister's first real relationship had turned abusive quickly, and he had been the one who took her down to the clinic for an exam. All of his buddies were only into fucking anything with tits big enough to jiggle, and being that that was all any of them wanted, Jensen hadn't even realized that it was possible to engage in a healthy, happy relationship, until he'd met Jared and Sandy.

And everyone knows how that ended up turning out, eventually. It'd gone sour faster than old milk when he'd come along.

And that's why Jared had kept her around for so long after the two of them really got down into it, Jensen thinks. As a catch me net. And Jensen didn't exactly feel good that he was someone's Plan A, but he didn't feel all that bad about making Sandy a Plan B, either. All Jared had wanted when he was that young was to love and be loved, he had been passionate about everything he did, and it turned out that Jensen had accidentally turned into one of those things.

Jared broke him down slowly and carefully, and it took years for him to be able to do it. By the end of that initial stretch, Jared had woven himself into every facet of Jensen's life, so much that it was a lot like getting stuck in a wind tunnel the day Jensen came home and most of Jared's things were gone. Jensen still remembers that feeling, holding onto the door knob with one hand, his keys still in the other.

He'd done a quick check. Jared's toothbrush was gone from the sink, sock drawer mostly emptied, passport missing from the office, laptop no longer settled just so on the edge of his desk or the kitchen table. Both of the dogs were locked up in the back hallway, which was usual if neither of them were home, but by the sad looks on their faces Jensen knew he couldn't look either of them in the eye.

Didn't touch anything, then. Closed and locked the front door behind him, before he got back into his car and went to check in at the nearest, most expensive hotel. Called a mutual friend of theirs from the lobby to make sure the dogs were taken care of.

Jensen couldn't go back to that house for days, really.

 

.

 

Jared is on board an overseas trip to Berlin, reading an European tabloid when the in flight stewardess comes by, offering him a drink.

"Yeah," He says, not looking away from his glossy. He flips to the next page, which is just an article about some British chick he's never heard of before, so he goes to the next page quickly after that.

He glances up when he hears the clink of ice against the inside of his glass.

"No ice," He says, looking up at the stewardess hovering over him, before he goes back to his magazine.

She sucks the lipstick off of her bottom lip in an effort not to simply lean over, and empty the drink into his lap.

 

.

 

The first thing Jensen remembers about meeting Jared, was thinking a lot about his hands.

"You know what they say about guys with big hands," Sophia had whispered at him the night Jared introduced them both to each other, and she'd been looking pretty and a whole lot classier than Chad had ever gave her credit for while they'd sat there watching Jared play darts.

Jensen had been this side of buzzed when he'd looked Jared up and down, and grinned crookedly at her.

"Big cock," He'd said, making her laugh and cover her mouth to keep the lime and vodka in.

She'd leaned over and rested her hand against the back of Jensen's chair as she sighed and looked past him at the dart board, and the happy looking group of boys playing it.

"Big feet," She'd said, eyes flickering back to look Jensen in the face. They'd both tried to keep it together for all of one moment, before helplessly dissolving into laughter that had Jared wandering back to their table with his lips leading the rest of his body.

Jensen was still wiping at one eye and breaking into laughter whenever he looked Sophia in the face as Jared came up, crotch level with their table.

"What's goin' on?" Jared had drawled, a tried and true Texan when the booze came out, with one hand coasting down the nape of Jensen's neck.

"Nothin'," They'd both answered innocently, unable to look at each other as they reached for their drinks. And by the sly grin on Jared's face, they both knew he believed neither of them.

 

.

 

That same night in the bar, after Sophia's buzz had died down to only texting on her cell phone in the furthest corner of the booth, Jared and Jensen had run off to the bathrooms, drunk enough to grab each other the whole way down the crowded hall, Jared's laughter sinking into the cheap cowboy tat hanging from the dusty walls.

If there's one thing Jensen will ever really remember from that night, it'd be the way Jared bumped into him from behind and held onto his hips with both hands the whole time he'd nuzzled his nose through the hair at the crown of Jensen's head. Jensen'll remember the hot damp way Jared's breath had warmed up the nape of his neck and the shell of his ear, and the way that feeling had completely froze him in that hallway, froze him too good, until Jared laughed quietly again, a huff of warm damp against Jensen's head before he reached forward with one hand and swung open the bathroom door.

Once that door had closed all bets had been off, Jensen swung around and grinned up at Jared with his tequila stained mouth, walking them backwards into the closest stall, keeping hold of Jared by the buttons on his shirt.

Jared had grinned down at him the entire time, hair falling into his eyes, following in the path Jensen lead him through, even though Jensen was leading blind.

The bathroom stall door had closed behind them, then, and neither had ever looked back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last time they'd had sex it had been dirty and quiet and all kinds of right desperate. Jensen had kissed him so hard he'd felt like some kind of flogging molly, waiting there in the dark with this man under his hands that he used to know all so well.

When Jensen wakes up, Jared is in Berlin already.

 

.

 

Jared really starts to feel like someone is mind-fucking him at the RBB, when he's waiting in the wings before an interview, and a studio edited mini biography piece flashes across the ceiling hung monitors above him. For the most part they've got all the usual bull included, how he grew up in Texas and began his career on a fluke, then spent four seasons on a series that bottomed out before tripling it's fifth year ratings.

Yeah, everything is pretty standard, except for how there's no mention of Jensen, not even a throwaway bit. Jared frowns when a photo of him comes on screen, at a premiere that he remembers attending with Jensen when they were still together. Except, it's only Jared in the photo that they're showing. His arm is still swung out, and there's still that negative space, only it's filled with the backdrop he's posing against, and there's just... no Jensen.

Jared looks away from the monitor, and frowns. Sure it's possible that there was a photo of him taken alone back then, even though pictures of he and Jensen both had been worth a hell of a lot more to the outlets together than separately, but when Jared glances up at the monitor just in time for a new photo, it's a stock image a lot of the news sites and stations use. And Jared knows that Jensen is supposed to be in it, and it's only when he realizes it that the cold feeling in Jared's stomach amplifies.

He tries to shake it off despite his gut feeling, and makes sure that the shirt he's wearing is still tight enough to make his abs look fucking awesome. Then he steps out from behind the drop curtain and walks across the sound stage, grinning and waving at the audience cheering above him.

 

.

 

Jensen wakes up the next morning with a hangover from the half bottle of wine he consumed before passing out last night, and the first thing that he does is look for Jared's hands among the bed sheets.

The second thing he does is make a run for the bathroom, and throw up into the bath tub.

Jensen knows that after all of these years, he holds his wine a hell of a lot better than that.

 

.

 

The last birthday he'd had, Sophia came up from L.A. to hang out with him and go to breakfast in Gas Town. Gas Town was the only area of Vancouver that Sophia actively bothered to remember, so it was usually the first place they ended up when she was this side of the border.

Over the bagels and dairy free cream cheese, Sophia had handed him his birthday card. And really, Jensen should have known that something wasn't right when she sat back quietly and gently smiled at him over her gelato, instead of breaking into song and all but ripping the envelope open for him so he could see the tacky card she'd picked out for him all that much faster.

Instead, Jensen had regarded her carefully over their breakfast spread, quirked his lips, and opened the envelope with his thumb.

When he opened his unsurprisingly only moderately inappropriate birthday card, which played the Arrogant Worms version of 'Happy Birthday' ("Happy birthday, what have you done that matters? Happy birthday! You're starting to get fatter!"), a business card fell out and caught in his lap before it got a chance to float down to the floor.

And it looked like any other business card, really. Black font, easy to read, some guy's name under his medical title.

But Jensen had looked from the card and over to Sophia, who was looking back at him so sadly. When he saw the softness in her eyes all he could do was snap his gaze back to the writing on the card.

Dr. Ben Hammond, Corpus Nucleus Incorporated.

And then, in smaller letters that were almost too hard to read, Amygdala purging and retrieval services.

 

.

 

Jared's leaning over the concierge services desk in the hotel lobby that night, trying to get the night shift desk agent to stop being such a wiener about sharing his internet and to just scroll down the damn page.

"Tell him to go down!" Jared snaps at the translator, who looks as white as a ghost strung up in a clothes line as she stands between the two of them, trying to defend both sides of their argument. "All I need to see is one picture!"

She tries to explain this to the desk agent, who is clearly having none of it as he spews off a few choice words in German and promptly closes the web browser down.

"He says that it's against hotel management rules," The translator tries to explain to Jared, reaching for his arm when he completely ignores what she just told him and instead goes to take the mouse out of the agent's hand. "Completely forbidden."

Jared knocks her hand away and goes for the mouse again, upper body mostly on top of the desk. "It's one goddamn picture!" He spits, and that's when the first flash goes off outside.

"Aha!" The front desk agent cries, letting go of the mouse to point outside the huge picture windows. Jared seizes the mouse. "Fotojäger! Fotojäger!"

At this point Jared could care less, as he's been photographed doing much worse. He clicks an image on IMDB,and, as he's waiting for the full image to load, scrolls down to read the caption.

Names: Jared Padalecki  
Photo 410 of 2,456: Photo date: 29 November 2010 © WireImage.com - Image courtesy of WireImage.com

He goes to the next page and photo of the same event, and the one after that, and after that. A round of flashes streak in from outside.

'Jensen Ackles', he types into the search database, using both of his pointer fingers to hit the keys.

Jared taps his fingers against the counter top as the page loads, and the desk agent turns to look at him with a sour expression on his face.

"Tell him to chill the hell out," Jared scowls at the translator, turning back to look at the search results. An error message comes up in the browser, and he points at the screen as he looks back at the translator, frowning at her. "What does that say? What does it say?"

She leans over his shoulder and shrugs. "It says that there was a browser error, and you should try again later... or check your local connection."

Jared refreshes the page over and over until senior management comes down to escort him back to his suite.

 

.

 

The next day, Jensen is watching Entertainment Tonight Canada when Rick Campanelli says that Jared Padalecki is currently in Berlin on a mass promo tour for his new Clooney flick, and was photographed by a mass of paparazzi last night as he tried to search out Jensen Ackles, his ex-partner, on IMDB.

Huh. Jensen wiggles his toes where his foot is hanging off the arm of the couch, and flips the channel. Definitely wasn't expecting that.

 

.

 

Chris was Jensen's best man, and because he was only slightly less inappropriate for public speaking material, he had won out over Chad to do a speech at the reception.

And then all he said was, "Be excellent to each other," and tipped in his glass in their general direction before sitting down again.

Jared had teared up a little, and that should have been Jensen's first clue that they were doomed.

 

.

 

Jared flies back from Berlin the next night, and has to take two Oxycontin to calm down enough to fall asleep during the flight.

"You were at that premiere with us," Jared mentions to his assistant Katie, no relation to Cassidy, just as he's starting to go sleepy and loose from the drugs. "You were there, you should remember. He was there, too."

She looks across the aisle at him sadly, gently, and frowns a bit at him sitting there, leaning his face against his hand as he feels his eyes starting to drift closed. That deep, heavy rush of cold going through him from the front of his head down along the back of his spine.

"Katie," He manages to say, throat working over the lump growing there. "Tell me I'm not going crazy."

Katie licks her lips and doesn't look at him until she leans across the aisle between their seats, and holds onto his shoulder with one hand.

"Jared," She tells him, looking him right in the face. "You're not going crazy yet. Just relax. I'll make sure you're up before we land."

Without much of a fight, Jared's hands go slack and his head slumps down until his chin is resting on his chest, and there are deep, even breaths chapping his lips.

Katie settles back into her seat and rhythmically taps her toes against the floor beneath her feet.

 

.

 

Jensen's at his appointment the next morning, chilling in the waiting room while he tries to pretend the nurse isn't staring at him and looking away every time he glances over. There's a stainless steel sign hanging on the wall behind her with CNI splashed over the front, and a batch of expensive looking pamphlets on a table by the door.

The first time Jensen came here, almost three months ago now, he had been playing around with the little brain figurine sitting amongst the magazines on the center table. Then the frontal lobe had fallen off by no fault of his own and he hadn't touched the damned thing since.

There's an elderly lady sitting in the seat beside him that Jensen is pretty sure he saw at his last appointment. It looks like she's blind in both eyes from the way she's staring at nothing particular, both irises blown white and milky. Jensen frowns at her, and jumps when she then accidentally knocks her cane over.

"Here you go," He says, picking it back up and setting it against the side of her chair just as the receptionist calls him to the front desk.

As he's going to get up, the elderly lady asks him, or the space behind him at least, "Frank? Franklin?", and there's a desperate tone hidden in her voice that makes Jensen's blood run ice cold.

Turning around, he returns the smile the receptionist throws him as he approaches her, and tries to ignore the way the elderly woman is trying to feel her way along the front of his seat.

"How are you today?" She asks Jensen, even though he can tell that most of her attention is concentrated on what's happening behind him.

Jensen glances over his shoulder but looks back right away at the desperate, lost expression that he finds on the woman's time worn face.

Instead of answering the receptionist's question, he scratches behind his ear and vaguely gestures behind him. "Is she?..."

"She's fine," The receptionist assures him, attention snapping quick back to his face. She smiles tightly and reaches up with a few sheets of paper for Jensen to sign regarding today's session. "She's just in the last stages of treatment."

Jensen tries to study the expression she's giving him as he takes the pen and papers, but she regards him carefully with no real expression to be found anywhere on her face. Jensen holds her gaze for a moment, and thinks of losing everything that woman had after seventy or eighty years of life and keeping it all inside.

"Do you have someone to drive you home today?" The receptionist asks him, breaking his thought as she reaches for her intercom. Jensen nods vaguely, and leans against his elbow on the counter as he starts to fill the release forms out. "It's going to be more intense than your previous sessions. He's going to get deeper today."

Nodding again, Jensen signs his name on the dotted line, and slides the forms back down to her.

"In the parking lot," He says.

 

.

 

Chris isn't down with this funny business, and he hasn't been ever since Jensen tried to give him the big sell a couple of months ago now.

He smokes a bowl while he's waiting in the parking lot for his guy, and decides it's bad friend karma to get your best buddy to haul his ass all the way into Canada Town, and not even let him grab a coffee before you drag him off to drive you to your appointments.

But Chris would do anything for the little fucker and they both know that one all too well. Chris is cool with Canada, anyway.

He's sitting in a parking lot at just after one in the afternoon, smoking a bowl, for Christ's sake.

 

.

 

Jared wakes up only twenty minutes 'til they're due to arrive at LAX. While they land he sits there glassy eyed, staring out the window, wiping the sleep from his eyes and trying to clear his sleep addled brain. That groggy fog hazes over him well into the airport lobby, where he finds a couple of TMZ paparazzi waiting patiently for him by the luggage carousel.

"Hey, Jared, man," One of them calls, hurrying over with a camera on one shoulder. "What's up with the big freak out last night, dude?"

Frowning, Jared reaches down and grabs the first bag he sees that looks like it might be his. As he hauls it over his shoulder, he shoots the dirtiest look he can manage on over twelve hours of sleep at the camera, and feels his temper heat up when all the photographer does is laugh at him. Smarmy bastard.

"None of your business, dude," Jared tells him, before he shoulders between him and another guy with an expensive looking SLR, and heads out on his way to the car idling outside for him.

They follow him until he's walking down the arrivals sidewalk, trying to figure out where the car went, and it's only when Katie comes out of nowhere and holds her clipboard up in front of their cameras that Jared gets a chance to get into the right SUV and speed away.

 

.

 

"Look at you, man," Chris yells at him in the car back to his place. "You're like a fucking zombie! Do you even know your name right now?"

Jensen wipes tiredly at his face, feeling sick from the motion of the car and everything whizzing by outside at such a quick clip. "Shut up, Chris."

"It ain't gonna happen, Jensen. Man, have you looked at yourself lately?" Now Chris is on his high horse and he's gonna ride it right into Jensen Land. "I mean, is he really worth all the fuckin' trouble?"

Jensen knows that when his bottom lip starts shaking everything is about to go to shit, and that's why he's not really surprised when they come to a stop at a red light and he starts sobbing like a fucking child.

"Chris, don't," Jensen manages to say, face between his hands as he lurches forward against his seat belt, really definitely feeling like he's going to puke. He used the entire paycheck he got from the Paul Gross thing to pay for this, and Chris won't stop trying to touch at him. Jensen deflects Chris' first advance, and he backs off for all of one second before he's moving over again, reaching for Jensen. Jensen sees his hand coming out of his peripheral vision and slaps it away. "I said fuck off, Chris!"

The red eyed broken thing that yells at Chris isn't his buddy Jensen. Chris stares at him across the wide expanse of the front of his truck, completely at a loss for words, until the car behind them starts honking its horn like the douche bag Chris assumes they are. It's only when he looks up that he realizes the traffic light is green, and probably has been for a while now.

"I'm going to fucking puke," Is the last thing that Jensen manages to say, before he passes out against the seat belt straining his chest.

 

.

 

The wedding reception itself had been pretty cool.

Jared had seen a picture in a magazine once that had all these white lanterns and Christmas lights strung around everywhere, so they'd done that, and in the warm purple and red skied fall night in Vancouver, they'd done all of the cheesy things that were expected of them. They danced, but they danced to a distracting Lupe Fiasco song that probably wasn't all that appropriate. They'd eaten cake, but Jensen had thrown it through the air for Jared to catch in his mouth, a trick that they'd perfected pretty early on in their friendship.

The wedding party photos had been accidentally erased from the photographer's memory card, so all they'd had to document the night were the candid shots the photographer had managed to save, and what was salvageable from the disposable cameras they'd left on each table.

"Look at us," Jared had laughed at him, halfway through the night. They'd both gone and lost their suit jackets, Jared had taken off his tie and Jensen's was loosened. They were dancing to a Beyonce song, because Jared had swore she was the only one he could jam proper to. "All grown up."

Jensen had swung around him and got an arm up loose around his shoulders as they started grinding and laughing against each other's faces.

"Yeah look at us," Jensen had echoed, in that smarmy way of his, but then Jared had grabbed his face with both hands, and kissed him backwards.

 

.

 

The first thing Jared does when he gets through the front door of his house, is to storm through the first floor, and all the way through to the office.

"I know you're here somewhere," He says quietly, to nobody in particular as he starts to rifle through a drawer. He digs around in it until he gets angry enough to yank it right outta the desk and dump its entire contents into his office chair. When that search comes up empty handed, he does it to the next drawer, and then the one after that too.

And then the storage closet, and his filing cabinet, and the one photo album he has that his momma made him leave Texas with that one last time he was down there.

But, standing there in a trash pile full of all of his memories, Jared stares around the room, both hands in his hair.

He knows for sure that there's gotta be at least one photo left, in tact. The way he's sure he remembers it.

 

.

 

Jensen spends the rest of the day in bed. Doctor Hammond probably hadn't known how right he had been when he said that today's session was going to be intense.

At four in the afternoon, Chris comes in with an empty bucket, and leaves it beside Jensen's hand dangling off the side of the mattress. Jensen manages to wiggle his fingers in thanks.

"Who knew getting your memory wiped hurt so much," He manages to crack, quietly and broken from underneath his mountain of blankets.

Chris doesn't even pretend like he's laughing. All he does is nod and shut the light off, but keeps the door cracked open behind him as he heads back down to the kitchen.

Cracked, just in case.

 

.

 

"Someone's fucking with me, man," Jared tells Chad that night, as he's sitting at the foot of his bed, digging through a shoe box with one hand.

Chad's talking to someone else in the background as he talks to Jared, but after all these years Jared's come to find his astoundingly bad manners endearing.

"Oh yeah?" Chad asks him, then resumes his conversation with whoever else is obviously demanding more of his attention.

Jared sighs, and turns slightly so he can dump the shoe box out on the pillow top. He starts flattening things out, knowing he's looking for...

Aha.

"Yeah," Jared says, then pauses, flips the photo over, and regards the date. This one is still right. "Someone is like... I don't even know, man. All the pictures and stuff I have. It sounds pretty stupid, but."

Chad pauses, then snorts loudly into the phone. Like a dog. "But what? C'mon dude, explain yourself. I don't have all day and my kid wants some food."

"I can't find Jensen in any of them." Even Jared knows how stupid that sounds now that he's said it out loud. He sighs before Chad gets a chance to answer, and flips the photo over to stare at him again. And there he is, looking right back up at him in the picture. "I know how ridiculous that sounds."

Chad is pretty quiet, at least quiet as Chad goes, before he completely shatters the silence by yelling right into the phone, "DARCY. I said put it down and I will make it myself."

Cringing, Jared closes his eyes, and rubs the photo against the thigh of his jeans. Warming it up, keeping it close.

"Well?" He says finally, after allowing a moment of Chad arguing with his kid about who's going to be the one to make the "damned macaroni and cheese."

There's a pot clanging around in the background as Chad makes his classic Jensen related scoffing noise, and says, "Well, whatever. Just count yourself lucky he didn't want more than half the estate."

Jared is left staring at a dirty spot in the carpet while the phone line goes completely dead. He should have figured Chad would be as of much help.

 

.

 

The first movie that Jared had signed with Sam Mendes, Jensen had never felt more proud.

They'd gone out to dinner together, had some fucking banging celebratory sex once they got home, and then once more when they'd finished off the last half a bottle of wine. The next day Jensen had been grinning more than Jared ever had, so proud of him, that he'd managed to extricate himself from their doomed television series purgatory, and stagger away from it with both fists swinging towards a promising film career.

And that had just been the start. After Sam Mendes there had been Oliver Stone and Kevin Smith, and then there was the contract for the three Wes Anderson movies that had actually turned into four. And somewhere in those five years is when Jensen thinks that Jared really started to change.

He started spending more time in California, while Jensen hung around Vancouver and thought about taking up a pilot offer Kripke emailed him about. He declined; J.J. Abrams contacted Jared, but Jared was too busy with his four picture deal. So Jensen stayed at home more, relaxing, and Jared started to travel overseas. Jensen went to the grocery store for dog food, Wes called Jared out to London for three weeks to do some invaluable stunt stuff. Jensen flew down to Hollywood to attend one of Jared's premieres, and ended up going alone because Jared's schedule in London was extended by nine days at the very last minute.

On the flight back from LAX to YVR Jensen had got himself so drunk on the in flight JD rum and cokes, he'd had to call a cab to take him home on touchdown.

 

.

 

A month before the divorce paperwork officially went through, they'd met at a restaurant with lawyers in tow to divide up their assets.

Their real estate in Vancouver was split, they each ended up with 50/50. Both agreed that whatever was rightly theirs, gift or not, would stay that way. Jared took Sadie, and Jensen kept Harley, because he hadn't been doing too well, and all he needed was another cross continent move. They split up the DVD collection and the bed sheets and the cutlery, sold the bed, donated all their old wedding presents, and threw the remaining wedding photos into a box that inevitably ended up in Jensen's storage room.

And even though they'd said goodbye after that lunch meeting, that was the day that Jensen really knew he hadn't seen the real Jared in a while. Especially when Jared didn't even blink an eye the entire time he was signing the papers.

 

.

 

Jensen is making himself coffee and puttering around the kitchen when the phone rings.

He waits for three then four tones before he decides Chris must be completely ignoring it even though the cordless is sitting right beside him in the living room. Jensen sighs and rounds the kitchen island, heads down the hall, and steps directly in front of the video game Chris is losing at to retrieve his phone.

"Hello?" He stands right in front of Chris until Chris unceremoniously shoves him out of the way and he staggers to the side, laughing as he tries to keep a grip on the phone.

Chris gives him the finger as he turns around and heads back to his post, otherwise known as standing in the middle of the kitchen.

"Hi," Jared says, simple as that. Like the last time they'd talked wasn't six months ago, when Jared had lost his passport and forgot to remove Jensen from his list of character references.

The scathing review Jensen had given to the passport must not have been as bad as he'd been aiming for; Jensen heard Jared had been filming in Europe pretty recently, after all.

"It's one thirty in the morning," Jensen says, stupidly. Of all the things he's been thinking, saving up to say to Jared, that's the one he chooses to start with.

Jared seems pretty distracted, but makes a 'yeah' noise in the back of his throat and keeps on. "Look, I'm only calling to, uh. Ask something." He pauses, then clears his throat and Jensen rolls his eyes as he leans back against the counter. Jared sighs and asks him, "Have you noticed anything weird happening lately?"

In one fell swoop, Jensen's stomach turns icy and his palms start to sweat. Jensen comes out of it with an awkward laugh, then becomes even more self conscious when he realizes Chris has paused his game and is currently lurking in the hallway.

"Jared, listen. I..." He starts, as he looks up to see Chris standing in the doorway, watching him from the other side of the room. At the mention of Jared's name, Chris' eyebrows shoot all the way up into his hairline. Jensen makes a face at him and turns away, leaning against the counter with his back to the set of eyes googling at him. "No, I've been. You know. Fine."

That was really convincing. He hears Chris snort a laugh behind him and start wandering over from the doorway.

"Yeah? Cause I'm pretty sure I'm losing my mind," Jared tells him.

Jensen realizes with a sickening clench in the bottom of his stomach that this is totally all about him, about what he's done. And he realizes for the first time that it's definitely not exactly the clean break he thought he'd get.

"Jensen," Chris stage whispers, suddenly beside him. Jensen flaps his hand around and tries to elbow him away. Chris sighs. "Jensen, gimme the damn phone."

Leaning away from Chris, Jensen starts around the kitchen island just as Jared is asking him, "Is that Chris?"

"Yeah, it is." Jensen has no idea who else Jared thinks it could be. "Listen, is that all you wanted? Cause I..."

Chris makes another snatch for the phone, but Jensen plants a hand flat against his chest and takes another step back. The look Jensen levels at him puts a cog in his gears for a second, but then he's shaking his head and widening his eyes back in retaliation to Jensen's stern expression as he makes grabby hands and takes another step forward.

"Yeah," Jared tells him, still sounding distracted. "That was all I wanted."

Then the phone line goes dead, and Jensen is left standing there, staring at Chris staring back at him. For a long time, neither of them blink.

"I haven't talked to him in six months," Jensen tells him, breaking the silence as he hits the off button and glances down at the phone display.

One of Chris' hands is on the curve of Jensen's back as he reaches for the phone with the other and says, "Jensen, he's not the love of your life no more. He's just a bad business deal."

 

.

 

In the end, the divorce had been completely mutual. They'd decided on a Saturday, and by the Monday right after that, they were already living in separate hotels on either side of the city.

Jared had holed up in Richmond to start with, so he could be close to the airport. Jensen stuck around Jericho Beach cause it'd always felt like home, and they'd left their million dollar house sitting vacant halfway down Marine Drive. Jensen went back once, when he realized he'd forgot to pack some semi important paperwork during his initial 'throw everything into a suitcase and get the hell outta Dodge' phase, and in a freak encounter, had bumped into Jared retrieving something from his office, just to end up getting fucked among the paperwork on top of Jared's desk.

And that hadn't even been the last time, even though it would have been an all too appropriate way to cap off whatever had been left of their otherwise dusty relationship.

 

.

 

"I should tell him," Jensen decides, right before he throws another shot of Jim Beam back.

Chris is sitting opposite him on the floor. He's also manning the two six, because Jensen is a greedy, stupid drunk.

"No, you really shouldn't." Chris pours them both another shot each, and pushes the shot glass across the table for Jensen to get his sticky fingers around. Without even pausing or showing concern, Jensen picks it up, and downs it.

He doesn't want to feel like he's falling behind, so Chris throws his back too, and reaches for the JB once more.

"Why shouldn't I," Jensen grumbles, and Chris can tell that he's starting to get sloppy, just by the way he gestures his hand in one floppy move. A drunk Jensen is a sloppy Jensen, is a Jensen with some seriously gay mannerisms. "I'd want to know if someone was erasing their memories of me."

Chris pours them two more shots, one each, and caps the bottle. "It's gonna get messy if you tell him, man. It's just not a good idea."

"It's messy already. Fuck." Jensen downs the shot and hisses, wiping the back of his hand across his lips, because obviously the fifth shot burns more than the first four do. "And, I doubt that he's gonna care, anyways."

Licking his own lips, which are starting to lose feeling, Chris shakes his head, and pulls the bottle away when Jensen goes for it.

"He'll care," Chris says, because even if this Jared as of late is a total dick Jared, he was still Jensen's Jared at one point, and Chris knew that one well. "Jensen." He waits until Jensen is wobbling and looking him unevenly in the eye. "I'm telling you not to tell him."

Jensen frowns and goes all bleary eyed for a second, and Chris reaches forward, thinking he's about to puke or drop. Or both.

"You shoulda told me to never," He starts, but then stops mid-sentence, and bends down to rest his face in his hands. The rest of his words come out against the palms of his hands, and Chris can't make them out real good, but he thinks he's got an alright idea of what they entail.

Without reconsidering, he unscrews the Jim again, and pours his buddy another shot.

 

.

 

Jared isn't a stupid guy. And he never has been, despite what reports used to say.

The next day he tucks the one photo he's got left into his pants pocket as he's getting dressed, because Jensen is still in it every time he's checked so far.

"I need a flight to Vancouver," Jared says as a greeting, when he phones Katie that afternoon. He's standing in his kitchen, wearing his jogging pants that are too low and an armband that calculates his heart rate.

She doesn't say much else to him, other than a sigh and an, "okay."

 

.

 

The next appointment Jensen has scheduled with Doctor Hammond is for next week, but he debates canceling it when he wakes up with not only your standard hangover, but the after effects of yesterday's session as well. He'd been warned at the start that it affected your body a whole lot like chemo did.

Which should have scared him.

"Are you still in contact with him?" Hammond had asked him at yesterday's appointment, as he was checking Jensen's blood pressure and lung capacity.

Jensen had felt a lot like a little child sitting in a high dentist's chair as he swung his feet and shook his head. "Not really. Still keep some stuff around the house, though, you know?"

"What kind of stuff?" The doctor was looking at Jensen over the rims of his glasses as he said it, and it had made Jensen feel uncomfortable.

Shrugging, Jensen held his glare as best he could, and felt his heart thumping against the doctor's stethoscope. "Pictures and stuff, I don't know."

"Get rid of it," He'd told Jensen without another thought, as he shifted forward to better listen to Jensen breathing in and out, in and out.

 

.

 

Jensen hadn't, and knew he wouldn't.

 

.

 

The last time they'd had sex it had been dirty and quiet and all kinds of right desperate. Jensen had kissed him so hard he'd felt like some kind of flogging molly, waiting there in the dark with this man under his hands that he used to know all so well.

It had been at Sophia's birthday party of all places, and even though Jared hadn't been invited, he'd tagged along with Chad, who'd come with another mutual friend of theirs, and that had only been because he was the kind of guy who liked to fuck shit up. And honestly, from the start Jared hadn't even thought about Jensen even being there, had gone only because he liked free booze and free food, and knew he was going in with the possibility of hand picking someone to bang.

And after the initial shock of seeing each other, after staring at one another over the cake and the drinks and the pretty wrapped presents for the better part of the night, Jared had caught Jensen in the hallway, on his way back from the bathroom. They'd snuck into one of the guest rooms right then, to backtrack on a good four months worth of emotional healing.

"I missed you," Jared had told him, sloppy from the vodka slimes Sophia kept dogging on him. Jensen had nodded and not said a whole lot of anything, because they were too busy kissing, dirty fucking kissing especially since their bodies knew what had been up the last couple months, and none of it had been with the two of them together.

Jensen got him back on the bed and sucked him off fast, must've been fast cause he barely remembers it still. All he does remember, is looking up over Jared's body in the dark light of the room, cause that night they'd been moving way too fast to slow down and put the lights on. Jared's body had stretched on for damn well forever that night, and god of course they were still good together, perfect together, not when neither of them had forgotten how they moved and what to do to make it worth everything else.

"Yeah," Is the only thing that Jensen can remember himself saying. Just one quiet, desperate yeah in the dark of the room as he straddled Jared and rode him hard, bending over at the hips to get his mouth good and dirty on Jared's collar bone, up that stretch of throat and over his chin then into his mouth.

It had taken all of ten minutes, maybe just a few more, but the memory had resonated and stung deep for months after that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then Jensen is walking out of the room, leaving Jared sitting there cross-legged on the floor, with this tiny little thing in his lap that is unbearably warm and cuddly and wearing a Batman mask, for christ's sake. 
> 
> Jared takes a few deep breaths, looks around the room at what he knows used to be their living room furniture, and tries to center himself. Again.
> 
> Definitely hallucinating.

Jared walks through Vancouver International with a sense of déjà vu. Everything is the same as it was the last time he saw it, the same way he remembers it being. He wears his sunglasses on his nose and tugs the hood of his jacket up over his head, not thinking that there are all that many paparazzis around here, but realizing that there's a damn good chance that things have completely changed.

Nobody greets him when he steps out into the cold fall sun. Katie couldn't even get him a privately licensed SUV in the entire five hours it took to arrange for Jared to get from there to here, so he's left standing there, hailing a taxi with one hand.

As he throws his carry on into the back seat and climbs in after it, he can't help but thumb at the photo still hanging out in his pant pocket.

"The Fairmont," Is all that Jared says to the driver, as he settles back into his seat.

He stares out at the airport and all the busy people moving as they pull away from the curb.

 

.

 

Chris has had a bad feeling ever since Jared called, and he just can't shake it, not even when they duck out of Jensen's to grab a mid afternoon breakfast.

"All that sodium is gonna kill you one day," Jensen tells him, over their bacon and eggs and toast.

Setting the salt back on the table, Chris reaches for the ketchup, and presses that terrible Jared-flavored feeling down.

"I'm as dead as I want to be," He tells Jensen, smirking.

Jensen thumbs his sunglasses a bit further up his nose, and stares out the window.

Chris can see the things starting to fade from Jensen's memory, and it scares him.

 

.

 

"What's your favorite memory of me?" Jared had asked him once, when they were in their SUV, driving back from the IKEA in Richmond. Jensen's window had been down to let the late summer wind in, and he'd been trying to pick a loose thread out of the hem in his shorts. He'd caught it when Jared had failed in tracking down an IKEA employee and they'd ended up pulling down their own boxed Billy bookcases instead.

Jensen had smirked and looked over at Jared, smoothing a palm down his thigh.

"I have to narrow it down to just one?" He'd asked, tipping his head back against the seat and smiling when Jared had glanced over at him with a soft expression on his face.

He'd switched lanes and, as he was glancing back over his shoulder, said, "I know it's hard, but try."

Jensen had made up some elaborate tale about how his favorite memory of the two of them was one of the many times they'd spent together in bed all day, fucking and watching movies on Shaw Digital when they got hungry enough to break and eat. Which wasn't the truth, and Jared hadn't believed him, but he'd had his reasons.

Cause the truth was:

 

.

 

Jensen's quintessential, number one of all time Jared moment was, oddly enough, at his own sister's wedding. She'd had it during the tail end of summer, down in Texas 'cause even though she'd long since moved to live in the windy city, and that had been where she'd met Daniel, she was still always gonna be a Southern girl at heart.

And it was warm and Jensen had loosened his tie, taken Jared right out of his suit jacket, because sometimes even Vancouver in winter was still too warm for him. They'd been dancing together at the reception, nice as you'd like, the two of them under the tent, and Jensen just, distinctly remembers looking up at Jared's face, and noticing the streaks of soft yellow light thrown from the strung up lanterns slanting across his cheekbones, his lips.

Jared had been grinning, swaying back and forth as he danced with both arms over each of Jensen's shoulders, and by heart Jared was a singer when he started dancing, but it was even worse when he'd had a few drinks in him. He was also one of the few bizarre people that Jensen had ever met in his life who could remember lyrics to every song he'd ever heard more than once, and Jensen had laughed the whole night away as Jared sang along to the choruses in old motown songs, the best parts of classic rock tracks, current pop hits, and, in one very eventful moment, a hip hop track that Jensen had otherwise been too busy shaking his ass to.

They'd danced the whole night damn well into dusk, Jared's arms looped around Jensen's shoulders, dripping with happiness as they hung out with mostly the younger couples, MacKenzie's friends from U of C. When all the good 'ole Texan boys had retired with their wives for the night, the DJ had started spinning bass driven tracks and Stylistics records that had Jared laughing and twirling Jensen around, dipping and leaning his head back so he could sing the words he knew into the tented ceiling above them.

And Jensen, just.

Jensen just remembers being in love.

 

.

 

Jared checks into his hotel, and makes himself comfortable in the executive penthouse on the highest floor.

First thing he does is order room service, second is turning the TV on to the first local channel he can find, and the third and last thing is taking his shoes off, wiggling his toes into the thick piled carpet as he settles back into the sofa.

His cellphone starts vibrating its way across the coffee table right when he's in the middle of his chicken dinner and a segment on E! about celebrities and what they're doing to help global warming. Jared frowns, wondering why they don't have a clip of him in amongst all of the commentary, and steadies the plate in his lap as he reaches forward to pick his cell up, flipping it around to get a good look at the caller ID.

It's Katie, and Jared hesitates, but inevitably knows that she'd only phone back and back again until she finally manages to get him on the line.

So instead of avoiding her, he picks up with a, "What?" and picks a piece of herb out from between his front two teeth.

"How was your flight?" She asks him, but it's mostly just common courtesy for her to ask that by now, and Jared knows that she doesn't really mean it. That and the fact that he can hear papers shuffling around in the background, which is Katie speak for 'whatever I just said is not what this call is really about.'

Flicking his freshly tooth picked herb across the room, Jared settles back into the couch and re-adjusts his plate. "It was fine."

"Good," She says quickly, then covers up the receiver and says something to someone else in the background. Jared turns the volume up on the TV and continues to wonder why they haven't used any clips from when he attended that stupid Environmental awards thing last year. Then Katie sighs into the receiver, completely breaking his train of thought as she tells him, "Look, I get that you're dealing with... whatever, up there, but you've got a shoot with Men's Vogue in two days, and I can't cancel it."

Jared gets himself a good hunk of chicken and a couple of green beans stacked onto his fork. "Sure you can. They've been trying to get me for months, they'll reschedule."

"If you want to do a picture with Clooney, you've gotta put in the after hours," She tells him, disregarding what he just said. Jared rolls his eyes and opens his mouth wide enough to fit a two by four as well as his fork in. "And being that you've shot the movie, it's promotion time. You know that, Jared. And he's still pissed about last week, by the way, and considering you've still got an additional two months of promo overseas, you do not want to fuck this up."

He chews and chews, chews and swallows, and reaches for his wine glass filled with water. She sighs on the other line as she gets fed up with listening to him swallow and gulp at the water, the clink of the goblet as he sets it back on the coffee table.

"Hey, why didn't you ever get me in on this E! environmental special thing," Jared asks her, going for a quick change of subject.

She totally doesn't take the bait, and says his name in a very typical chick warning tone.

"Look, I'm tied up," He tells her, pushing his green beans into two piles and then picking the skin off the chicken. "I'm tied up now, and I'll be tied up until I tell you that I'm not anymore."

Jared frowns at Leonardo DiCaprio quietly judging him from inside the television screen.

"Look, I get that you're going through some midlife crisis," She starts, and that's when Jared hangs up on her.

He fumes about it for a minute, sitting on the couch by himself as she tries to phone back twice, once right after the other. But inevitably, all he does is put his phone on silent, wedge it between the couch cushions, and leave his half finished dinner sitting there on the coffee table so he can get up and go get lost in the steam shower.

Getting lost sounds just about half awesome, he thinks, as the water starts to pour over his face, down the bridge of his nose, and into his mouth.

 

.

 

"Didn't Dr. Strangelove tell you to get rid of that shit?" Chris asks him, when he's standing over the griddle without a shirt on as he makes himself a couple of pressed sandwiches.

Jensen glances up from where he's reading the morning paper at the kitchen table.

"What are you talking about?"

Chris gestures over his shoulder, at the photo stuck on the fridge door. It could be any couple, anywhere, but it's Jared and Jensen and about forty of their closest on set friends. It was taken years ago, Chris can tell just by the lack of shadows on Jensen's face.

"That," Chris adds, just to be sure they're both damn sure.

Jensen shrugs his shoulders and flips his paper. "Don't see why. Just a picture of me and the crew. I barely remember it."

Frowning, Chris pushes his bread around with his little plastic spatula, and looks over his shoulder again. It's pretty clear it's Jared and Jensen as Jared and Jensen, the famous j-squareds, and then the crew. Where they had been concerned, everybody else was merely an after thought.

He opens his mouth to maybe say that or something else, but has no idea how to put 'you sure you're not missing the eight foot mammoth hulking over you in there?' into words that are appropriate for this particular juncture in Jensen's adult life, so he doesn't.

 

.

 

The next morning Jared is only on his second coffee when he decides that now is a good time to call Jensen.

"Yeah," Chris finally picks up, after oh, twelve or thirteen rings.

Jared frowns up at the ceiling of his hotel room, and through a sigh, replies, "Hey, Chris."

"This has gotta stop, man," Chris tells him right out, which means Jensen is not in the room or even the immediate area. He gets right down into business and keeps going before Jared can intercept what Chris rightly calls his law of physics as Jensen's best buddy -- a.k.a., having the right to bitch and whine in Jared's general direction about things that don't really concern him. "And I'm not joking, yeah? Shit's gotta end."

Switching his cell over to the other ear, Jared starts across the room, on his way back to his coffee pot. "Just let me talk to him for a second, dude. You're not his gatekeeper."

"You got no idea how wrong you really are, buddy," Chris shoots back, which doesn't surprise Jared in the damn least. "He is priority number one on all fronts right now, you got met? Why the fuck do you think I'm even up here in Canada Land? You think I like the clean air and lack of media propaganda?"

Jared sets his coffee cup down on the kitchen counter, right beside the peculator, and pinches at the bridge of his nose. "Look, I get that you get off on watching out for him, but it doesn't concern you right this second, man, and I need to talk to him."

"I'm gonna level with ya, you are not exactly my favorite person in the world, and all this attitude you're throwing at me? It's really not -- "

Losing his patience halfway to getting the coffee cream out of the fridge, Jared slams the door, fumbles the creamer packet to the floor, and snaps, "I'm in Vancouver, Chris, and I need to see him."

There's this loaded pause on the other end of the line, and for a few moments all Jared can hear is Chris mouth breathing into the phone, staggered enough to be at a loss for words for possibly the first time in his extended life. Jared has never known the guy to be short on vocabulary, and Jared's been in his sour presence for as long as he's known Jensen, which might as well be a lifetime.

"You're in Vancouver," Chris finally repeats, and, stupidly, Jared finds himself nodding along as he bends down to retrieve his creamer. "What the hell, boy? What could you possibly need from him? Do you fucking... You don't even know, man, what you've done to him."

Jared frowns, and leans against the counter with one hip. He's pretty sure he's got an alright idea.

"Look, I know. I know it's complicated, and you... You know, too. And I," He pauses, and flips the creamer over in his hand. "It's really important that I see him."

Chris makes a sound on the other end that sounds a lot like a sigh and a groan put together. Then he says, "You wanna see him, you're gonna have to wait for the right time."

"What the hell does that even mean," Jared snaps, cracking the creamer open and pouring it into his mug. He reaches for the coffee pot. "I've got shit to deal with on top of this, dude, and I don't need you to -- "

Chris interrupts him again, speaks so carefully and lays it down so simply, that Jared knows he's got dick all for wiggle room left after all the shit he's pulled.

"You'll wait," Chris tells him, speaking over Jared just as Jared says, 'I don't need you to fuck this up for me.' "The deal is gonna be that I talk to him first, and then you do it on his terms. I'll tell him, and he'll call you. And until he does, you better do a good job of makin' yourself real scarce up here."

Jared knows that Chris has always driven a hard bargain, but this is maybe the worst.

After a long silence from Jared, he finally sighs, stirring the coffee into his cream with a little plastic stick.

"Fine," He agrees. "But, just. I get that I fucked up, and I get that he knows I'm a douche bag, but..." He trails off, and in the empty kitchen, presses his fingers against the space between his eyebrows. "It's like something is taking everything I had left of him away from me."

"Yeah," Chris says, after a quiet second, and even throughout the rest of his words, Jared knows that there's something Cloverfield sized big that the guy isn't letting him in on. "Yeah, I get that. But if you're not careful, I'll gladly take whatever you've got left after that."

Then there's total radio silence, and Jared is left standing in his hotel room with a shitty cup of coffee and 59 missed calls from his bitch assistant.

Jared runs a had through his hair, and leans against the counter quietly.

 

.

 

Chris stands in Jensen's kitchen by himself, listening to Jensen idling his car in the driveway outside, and wonders how much worse this all could possibly get.

 

.

 

"I don't give a fuck who wants me," Jared tells Katie later that afternoon. "I'm out until you hear from me again."

 

.

 

Jensen walks through the front door just as Chris is coming down the stairs.

"Doc phoned for you," He says, bouncing down the last three steps as Jensen closes the door behind him. Aside from being a pretty good secretary, Chris can also beat the Devil in Guitar Hero with his back facing the TV screen. Jensen thinks that's alright.

Shrugging out of his jacket, Jensen raises his eyebrows when he catches Chris looking him over. "Oh yeah? What'd he want?"

Chris levels him with an expression that says 'how the fuck should I know?' and promptly disappears into the living room.

"Well, anyone else call?" Jensen shouts after him, heading in his own direction to the kitchen. A beer would be fucking awesome right now.

He rolls out the tight space between his shoulder blades as he's waiting for a reply from Chris and trying to decide between Kokanee or Lucky.

"Nah," He calls back eventually, just like everything else -- in Chris' own sweet ass time. Then a drum cymbal crash, and, "Hey, want to start a new tour?"

Jensen grabs two beers from the fridge and starts ambling back towards the living room. Halfway there is when he realizes that he feels okay for once in his life.

"Yeah, actually I do," He nods, coming into the living room. He hands Chris his beer over the back of the couch and then walks around to sit down, immediately leaning forward for one of the two guitars. "But don't cry at me when I smoke you."

Chris rolls his eyes and cracks his beer open.

 

.

 

Jensen knew shit was going down when Jared couldn't even look him in the eye after they'd fucked.

"Hey," Jensen had tried once, hovering over the back of Jared's shoulder, skin damp to the touch when Jensen rested his hand there, against the thickest part of Jared's arm. "What's up?"

Shaking his head, Jared had tried to vault himself right outta their bed, but when Jensen had realized, he'd tightened the grip on Jared's arm, and pulled him right back in again. Right away Jared sighed and tensed, but laid himself back down, wiping the sweaty bangs away from his forehead. Jensen frowned and reached up to thumb at Jared's jaw line, curling his other four fingers against Jared's cheek.

"Dude," Jensen leveled with him, ducking his head low so he could look right up into Jared's eyes. Jared immediately downcast his gaze and looked just about anywhere as long as it was below Jensen's throat. Jensen frowned deeper. "Okay. Tell me what's going on."

Jared pinched his lips together, a trait he got from his momma, and awkwardly reached up behind Jensen, to rest his hand against the back of Jensen's head. Like always, Jensen immediately felt like a little child, always did when he felt Jared's palm encompassing the entire back of his skull.

"It's nothing," Jared tried to assure him, but Jensen wasn't biting, especially with that ugly pinching feeling that was still in the pit of his belly. "I'm just stressed about the new contract, that's all."

Nodding, Jensen ran his hand down the side of Jared's neck, and pushed the flat part of his thumb into the soft spot between his collar bone and chest.

"Yeah, alright," Jensen whispered, not sounding much convinced at all. Then they looked at each other, and again, softer, "Okay."

Jared nodded and then pushed himself up onto one elbow to kiss Jensen on the mouth, close lipped and short.

"Okay," He repeated, gently pushing Jensen away when he tried to get closer. Jared all but fell out of bed, moving way too fast for a guy who felt just alright.

Jensen watched him wander off to the bathroom from the spot he was left in, in the middle of the bed, laying along the wrinkled sheets and blankets.

"Yeah, okay," He ended up grumbling to himself, trying to flatten the creases from his own head out of Jared's pillow case. He listened as the shower started up, and Jared coughed and horked something out of his mouth. Jensen rolled his eyes, and flopped back to stare at the ceiling.

Something was going down, and that was the night that he really started to suspect it.

 

.

 

Jared keeps his phone within arm's reach when he heads down to use the hotel's gym, which he makes sure the staff knows is private when he's inside. Nobody, no exceptions.

He works out for a good hour and a half before heading back to his room, wiping the sweat off of his face with the sleeve of his shirt as he walks down the hallways, lined with the same wallpaper and carpet as every other Fairmont on the West Coast. A young all-business looking lady passes him by with a twitch in her expression and a cell phone in her hand. Jared looks at her when they pass one another, but doesn't bother to smile or offer a 'hi' or hello.'

She regards him in the exact same way, and as he approaches his room door, he finds his hand coasting down to take the cell out of his pocket to check the received calls log, just in case.

 

.

 

"We can fit you in tomorrow morning at six," The doctor's receptionist tells him, when Jensen calls back. "Doctor Hammond would like to continue your appointments with an extension to twice a week, and he'd like to start now."

Jensen pinches his finger in his kitchen drawer and swears quietly. "That's... twice a week? Isn't that a little... invasive?"

"He feels that you'll start getting even better results if you begin treatment twice a week," The receptionist tells him. Jensen shakes his hand out and sends a dirty look towards the offending drawer as he sets the knife he pulled out of it onto the cutting board. "Your last report says that there are a few complex areas that he'd like to eradicate before moving any further."

Frowning, Jensen scratches the back of his head and tries to keep from wondering what the hell he's got himself into. "Complex areas? Is that?..."

"It's nothing to be worried about," She tells him, a little too quickly to mean it. "They're just memories that are sticking a little deeper than the rest. Concentrating on those areas in particular will help to dull them faster, and it'll be easier on your system in the long run."

Reaching across the counter for the block of cheese, because Chris is a nachos man and Jensen is here to please, apparently, he nods and glances over his shoulder at the calendar tacked up beside the fridge.

"Alright, well. If he thinks it'll make a difference," Jensen concedes, looking back to his cheese block and butcher knife. "Six tomorrow works."

She makes all of her pleasantries and ends the call while there are still all kinds of new thoughts floating around Jensen's head.

None of them stick long enough to make a real impact, and he makes the nachos in record time. Quick enough, even, to get back to the living room long before Chris has a chance to enter 'JENN1' as a winner's name in the leader board.

 

.

 

"Hey," Jared had apologized to him once, after one of the first blow-out fights that had come after Jared started with the new Hollywood douche bag routine. Jensen had been pretending to sleep, since it was three thirty in the morning and all, when the bedroom door had cracked open and Jared had come in with his tail between his legs. "Hey," He'd said again, quieter now, beside the bed, touching Jensen's leg through the blanket. "I'm sorry. Jensen."

Jensen had ignored him at first, but inevitably turned over after a few moments of the silent treatment, his eyes opening to glare at Jared standing over him, figure mostly dark, light spilling in from the hallway behind him.

"You're a real asshole lately," Jensen had said to him, frowning from the roughness in his voice, as Jared started leaning down, to kneel beside Jensen's side of the bed.

Nodding, Jared rested against the mattress, and reached over to touch Jensen's side through the thickness of the blanket. "I know," He whispered.

"I'm getting real tired of it, real fast, man," Jensen continued, wiggling around under the blankets until Jared's hand had no choice other than to move and rest on the cold mattress beside Jensen's body instead.

Jared rubbed the sleep out of one eye with the palm of his hand -- he felt like he hadn't had a wink in months because of this upcoming project, and maybe that wasn't the complete truth but that's what the bags under his eyes lead on to -- and ran his empty palm along the flat of the mattress.

"I'm going to get us a flight to somewhere warm for next weekend," Jared had said quietly, trying to reach down to the floor under him, to pull whatever was hurting his ass out of the way. Jensen's eyes flickered up to look at him in the dark of the room; Jared unearthed a dress shoe. "We'll go and, you know. Just the two of us. Maybe four or five days."

Jensen studied Jared's face quietly for a few moments, eyes flicking back and forth in the gloomy dust of their bedroom.

"And after those four or five days, it's back to the same old shit, Jared," He finally said quietly, not unkindly. Jared hadn't looked away the whole time Jensen had been waiting and watching for him to crack.

Shaking his head, Jared edged forward onto his knees, moving to half embrace Jensen's body from his spot on the floor. One arm sneaking up to go around Jensen's hips in the warmth of their bed, the feeling of comfort all but oozing out of Jensen's soft warm torso.

"No. Not this time," Jared whispered, still moving forward, up. He kept going until he was sitting at the edge of the bed, leaning close over Jensen's body. Almost face to face for the first time in a long time. "Jen, I didn't mean for things to... go like this. I'm just trying, and -- "

Jensen let him get close but stopped him right there, saying, "And I know, Jared, and other shit can change all you want it to, but not me and you, and not us. It's just not gonna be like that."

"Naw, I know," Jared nodded, palming Jensen's forehead, hand trailing back to rest on the crown of his head. "You know I'm still the same person, man. Same one you always knew." He paused and even smiled a bit, leaning down. Jensen studied him. "You just gotta put me back in line, sometimes."

Snorting, Jensen let Jared get close enough to mouth the spot on his cheek, right beside the lobe of his ear.

"That's gotta be my job now, does it," He'd whispered, tilting his head back.

Jared leaned over him more, reaching to let one palm sink into the mattress at the round part of Jensen's shoulder.

"Yeah," He whispered, moving closer to Jensen's mouth still, trailing his lips over the curve of his cheek, and to the corner of his mouth. "Knock me down when you think I'm getting too ahead of myself."

Laughing quietly but finally, Jensen reached up and let his hand rest on the nape of Jared's neck as he moved over and they kissed properly, a final blow to the three day long war that had been going on between the two of them, the forefront their home.

"I'll keep you in line," Jensen had promised, and the rest had been history, at least until it came up again.

 

.

 

Every time they hashed out that argument, it got a little harder. Jared's ego got bigger, Jensen's temper hotter, and pretty soon...

Ground zero.

 

.

 

Chris thinks about telling Jensen that Jared is in town on their way to the doctor's office the next morning. And fuck, talk about a rock and a hard place.

"You missed the damn exit, man," Jensen bitches, turning around in his seat to watch the off ramp disappearing in their rear view.

Swearing, Chris switches lanes, cuts someone off, and attempts to get off at the next exit.

"Sorry, sorry," He apologizes to Jensen, who was never one to be late. "I was thinking of something else."

 

.

 

It's eleven in the morning when Jared decides that he's going to say 'fuck Chris' and just phone Jensen, instead.

He picks up his cell, finds Jensen in his contact list and everything. But before he actually has a chance to do anything else, there's that quiet voice in the back of his head that he probably hasn't listened to as much as he should've in the last few years. It pipes up and tells him to get the fuck off of his high horse and calm down. Chris isn't exactly his biggest fan, that much is the damn truth, but the other-other truth, is that Chris always has and always will want what is best for Jensen.

Which Jared can say with a sick taste in his mouth, wasn't always the same for him.

Frowning, he lets his phone snap closed before he has a chance to change his mind. Maybe this time, it's just going to have to be okay to sit and wait.

 

.

 

"He'll be tired for the rest of the day," Hammond had told Chris, as they both stood watching Jensen, leaning against the receptionist's desk, looking nauseated and heavy. He looked like he was steadying himself, one hand up with the fingers of one hand braced against the top of his sunglasses. "But he's moving right along. We were able to terminate a few gray areas that we now know are key in purging the rest of his select memories. I think he's only got one session left, maybe two."

Chris frowned and nodded, already digging Jensen's SUV keys out of his jacket. He frowned at the doc. "So, what? Everything he's got in there that includes Jared just, isn't there anymore?"

"Not exactly," Hammond eyed him back, but accepted a clipboard full of papers from the receptionist, as she walked past him with a little smile at her lips, looking him dead in the eye as she passed. Chris snorted, but the doctor only ignored it and continued, "Some of them are completely gone, sure, but others are just... think of it as unplugging the cord connecting an external memory to a computer. It's still there, in theory, it's just not in tact. And if he were ever to find himself in a situation that could resemble one of the memories we purged for him today, he'd experience a certain kind of déjà vu. It's not uncommon."

Frowning deeper, Chris nodded, and looked down the hallway of the office, after the receptionist. Everything was either white or stainless steel, which definitely freaked him out a little.

"So what's the point, then?" Chris asked, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked across the room and could see Jensen fading rapidly. "If you're not even gonna remove 'em for good. After all that, he's still got a chance of remembering at some point?"

The Doctor looked up into his eyes, over the edge of his frame-less glasses, and pursed his dry lips.

"What's the point? You'd have to ask Jensen that," He said curtly, knocking one of Chris' blocks out from under him. "And, like I said to him during our first few consults. Detaching the memories is only the first step in the process. Jensen knows that we recommend aggressive therapy to deal with what's left of what he remembers, the few pieces there. Sometimes the brain just won't let go of what it owns, Mr. Kane."

Chris held his gaze for a few moments, but in the end, nodded.

This wasn't his war to fight right now, anyways. Not with the man standing in front of him, at least.

 

.

 

And that had been this morning. Now, Jensen is down on his knees in front of the guest bathroom toilet, arms wrapped around the bowl, knees shaking, eyes watery.

Chris doesn't want to watch, so he putters around the kitchen instead, and listens to the sounds of Jensen gagging and spitting against the bowl.

Before Jensen even emerges from the hallway, he ends up deciding, fuck Jared. He's not gonna let that dude get in the way this time, especially now all that Jensen really remembers about him is that they might've known each other at some point, somewhere.

 

.

 

Four days Jared waits in his hotel room, complacent with the idea of hanging around until Jensen decides to call him.

He waits, waits, waits, until he wakes up one morning and pulls out his photo, only to find that Jensen isn't in it anymore.

"Fuck it," He grumbles to himself, feeling the tears starting up at the corners of his eyes.

He grabs his jacket and wallet, and is out of the room and down in the lobby before he even remembers to call a taxi.

 

.

 

The taxi pulls up to the curb outside Jensen's house as Chris is coming out the front door with a bag in one arm and house keys in the other. Jared sees him first, and watches for a second as Chris pauses on the stoop and fights with the front lock.

"Wait here for me until I come back," Jared tells the taxi driver, glancing over at the fare charge of almost sixty bucks under the dash. Before he driver even gets a chance to reply, Jared is out of the back seat and storming up the path.

Chris turns around and sees him just as his foot is hitting the first step leading up to the door; and honest, Jared has never seen a person look more genuinely surprised in his life.

He seems to recover quick enough, though, and, glancing over Jared's shoulder at the waiting taxi, Chris says, "Dude. Not a good time right now."

"You told me to wait, and I did," Jared snaps, not thinking much as he reaches forward and jabs Chris in the chest with his longest finger. Chris frowns at him with an expression that says 'you do not want to do that right now, boy' all over it, and man, did Chris ever have a habit of making Jared feel like some little kid who didn't know shit from good chocolate.

Chris shakes his head, and doesn't say anything as he tries to squeeze past Jared on the tiny sized front stoop.

"Seriously, and I'm not joking," He says, after Jared turns to follow him. He starts bouncing down the steps, looking back over his shoulder to send Jared a serious, stern expression. "You better make yourself real scarce, and real quick."

Licking his lips, Jared shakes his head, and takes the stairs two at a time as he follows after him.

"Chris," He calls, but Chris has always been good at ignoring him, always, and simply continues on his path towards the car. Jared frowns and squints and looks ahead, but can't see Jensen in the front seat. He looks back over at the condo, but there aren't any lights on in there, either. "Chris, you son of a bitch, tell me what's going on!"

In the middle of unlocking the driver side door, Chris stops, and stares straight ahead for a moment before he looks up at Jared, frowning. Jared's face falls just like his hand does as it drops down to rest next to his hip.

"You have got no idea what the hell is going on, man," Chris calls up at him, voice neutral. Jared waits for him to continue, but he doesn't. Instead he goes back to ignoring Jared, and resumes his task of unlocking the SUV. Jared stands there long enough to watch him pop open the back hatch, but suddenly enough feels like damn well enough and Jared stomps his way down the front path and over to where Chris is loading a bag into the back. When Chris backs up and reaches to close the hatch, he sees Jared standing there, staring at him. Chris frowns. "What the hell are you even here for man, really? What could you possibly want from him now? Cause I'm tellin' you boy, he ain't got nothing left for you to take."

Jared frowns, feels his mouth wavering back and forth, but finally settles on yanking his wallet out of his pocket. Chris humors him, and stands there watching as Jared flips it open, pulls the photo out of the cash pocket, and slaps it against Chris' chest.

"You are rich and crazy," Chris tells him, making it sound a whole lot like an after thought. Jared frowns at him more.

He keeps his eyes on Jared's face the whole time he reaches up to peel the photo away from his chest, where Jared is still holding it flat there with two fingers. Jared backs off when Chris gets a hold of it, but only to go back to his wallet and pull two and then three more photos out. He holds them all out in front of Chris without saying a word.

Chris looks real careful at the photo in his hand, first. He's seen it before, he's actually pretty sure Jensen has a copy -- or, had a copy -- somewhere. It's a classic Jared and Jensen moment spent on the set of Supernatural, and Chris only has to look at it for a second before he casts his eyes to the side and hands it back over to Jared with a sour taste in his mouth.

"Yeah," Jared snaps, once he sees the expression cross Chris' face. Then he starts to jab more photos against Chris' chest, each one materializing from his wallet, and Chris has no choice but to take each one of them.

A photo booth picture with only one person in the strip, small pictures cut into obvious people-sized shapes that look like nothing more than a back drop to maybe any other photo taken anywhere in the world. A dirty brick wall, the inside of a pub; a forest full of good 'ole Canadian West Coast green, a camping trip they took damn well years ago.

Holding the photos out for Jared to take back, Chris frowns up at him, the impending roll of gray clouds coming in from the sky on the other side of Jensen's condo. Jared thinks it feels a whole lot like impending doom. Or rain.

"Yeah," Chris agrees, finally, and Jared takes the photos back. "There are some things that you don't know."

 

.

 

Jensen jogs along the water front, through a little park filled with kids dressed in thick winter coats, comes out of it and into a couple of oak lined streets. The cold air is sharp and hurts the inside of his nose, makes his lungs feel like he's inhaled a couple gallons of ice water, but he feels energized. Completely and utterly alive.

"Thanks," He tells the guy who holds the door open for him at Starbucks, as he picks the ear buds out of his ears and steps through the frame right foot first, his back brushing against the stranger's front.

He even throws a little half smile over his shoulder at the guy as he walks up to the counter, still breathing heavily, satisfied.

 

.

 

When they were still together, Jensen had assumed that one day they'd end up settling down and having kids. Hell, they'd already had the mortgage and the marriage, and really, Jensen wouldn't have minded having a couple of ankle biters running around. He'd always figured Jared would be a good daddy too, Jensen knew he'd been raised by one.

"What do you think about kids?" Jensen had asked him off the cuff once, when they'd been hanging out at the beach in summer, trying to distance themselves from the young girls and their families running around on the sand below them by hiding in the rocky area above.

He looked away from a couple of young boys chasing each other, the one bringing up the rear with a sand caked plastic bucket and pail, and over to Jared, who was laying on his towel in the sun, picking something off of his stomach.

"Never really gave 'em much thought," Jared shrugged, looking over at Jensen, pushing the sunglasses up his nose. "They're alright."

Jensen made an agreeable face, one that Jared identified by the way he pushed his bottom lip out and nodded, then went back to watching the movement below them, listening to Jared shuffle around, trying to turn himself over so he could get an even tan.

"Dunno if I could ever handle being a dad, though," Jared said, five minutes after Jared's initial conversation. He was laying on his belly with his chin rested on his hands as he looked up at Jensen.

Jensen twisted around so he could see Jared better, and asked, "How come? I think you'd be awesome."

"C'mon, man. I'm like a big kid myself," Jared smiled, sneaking one hand out to trace up Jensen's bare leg, going to rest on his knee cap. "I don't think I could handle all the responsibility."

Smiling, Jensen looked right at Jared's face for a moment, the two of them watching each other, happy to bake in the sun by themselves.

"I think you'd be awesome," Jensen repeated, reiterating his point. He reached over and brushed some of the sand off of Jared's temple.

 

.

 

"Jensen's been seeing this guy," Chris starts out saying, as he leans back against the kitchen counter with the flat part of his hip. Immediately Jared is goggling at him, shoulders going tense, each muscle bunching up. Chris rolls his eyes. "The dude's not me, Jared, Christ. He's a doctor."

Jared crosses his arms and frowns at Chris, nodding, jutting his chin out. "So? Where'd they meet?"

"What?" Chris squints and crosses his arms over his chest, too. "What are you -- oh hell, you two do have more baggage than you realize. He's seeing a doctor, Jared, as in, patient and doctor relationship."

A few emotions cycle through Jared's face, one right after the other: confusion, concern, a little more confusion, and then pure angry confusion. "Well, what's wrong with him?"

"You were," Chris says easily, shrugging. Jared's jaw starts to tick. "He's been seeing this guy who's got some kinda PhD in all that brain science shit, he specializes in purging parts of the amygdala."

Jared's frown goes a little deeper. "Now in English."

"He can erase parts of peoples memories," Chris explains to him. "A friend of his told him about it, months ago. S'why I'm here."

Then he shrugs like it ain't nothing, and moves to turn and grab himself a bottle of water from the fridge. Doesn't much expect Jared to believe him, really.

When he turns around, Jared is standing right there, like a fucking pile of brick and mortar. Chris takes a step back but cracks his bottle open all the same, as he stares up into Jared's face. Jared looks surprisingly calm and collected for someone who's just had a Jensen sized bomb dropped on them.

"You're bullshitting me." Now he looks resolutely sure of himself. The tick in his jaw has double timed, though, and Chris knows it. "Now, cut the shit, and tell me where he is. I'm not waiting anymore, man."

Chris shrugs, and takes a swig outta his water bottle, eyes flickering down to Jared's arms, where his muscles are starting to twitch. And that's the moment Chris knows he's walking on thin ice.

"Why would I make this up, huh? You think I give a shit about you enough to make up some damn story?" He asks, and Jared knows he ain't lyin', can tell by the shadows in his face, but he also knows he's not ready to believe it yet. "He's out jogging somewhere, hell, I don't know, but he don't remember you, Jared. His memories disappeared, so did the evidence." Chris shrugs, sucks something out of his front tooth, and casts his gaze downwards to look at the wallet shaped bump at the front pocket of Jared's jeans. "And hey, didn't you lose something there, big boy?"

Jared moves in a flash, and has Chris up against the front of the fridge with the breath knocked out of him before he even realizes what's going on.

"Now, tell me the truth," Jared grits, pushing back when Chris tries to shove his way free. The bottle of water he had is now half empty and rolling across the kitchen floor, most of its contents spilled down the front of his shirt and the side of Jared's arm. "Cause I sure as hell don't believe that."

Chris grins short through a huff of breath, and wiggles in Jared's grasp, testing the waters.

"Can't take the Texas outta the boy, huh?" He breathes, already winded. Jared smirks sharp and short, and then pushes his arm a little harder over Chris' chest. Chris wheezes, and laughs a little. "You done too many movies, Hollywood, jesus, ease up a little."

Jared shakes his head and grits out, "Not until you tell me," Struggling when Chris starts pushing against him. He knocks Chris down once more, and then stoops to look him dead in the eye. "Chris."

His eyes are starting to water now, and damn, Chris really should feel bad about that, but.

"'m sorry," Chris tells him, feeling Jared's grip starting to ease up for keeps this time. "I get you two still have your freaky issues, but you're gonna have to make a clean break, cause he don't remember. Not the way he use to."

Jared's hands go slack against Chris' chest, fingers curled against the cheap fabric of his t-shirt. Chris doesn't exactly know how to cope with the sudden, rapid well of tears building up in Jared's eyes, so he looks over his shoulder instead. And that's why he's so damned surprised when Jared grabs him by the t-shirt again, picks him up, and knocks him back against the fridge so hard that Jensen's booze collection rattles on top of it.

"Why the hell would you let him do that, huh?" Jared shouts, and Chris' mama always told him to never kick a dying dog when it's already down, but hell, there's only so much bullying that one guy can take.

Chris shoves back against Jared hard enough to knock him back a good foot and a half. It ain't even that hard to get away, especially once his hands are away from Chris, cause all of a sudden one is going up to wipe at his eye, tears already streaking down his other cheek.

"I didn't make him do anything," Chris heaves, chest rising fast and hard at the sudden excursion. So he's only moderately fit. He smokes a lot, lung capacity and all that, that's all.

Jared shakes his head and he's still teary-eyed, but moves to go after him again anyways. Swear it, Chris feels a hell of a lot like a modern day scapegoat as Jared says, "I don't believe it, you've had a hard on for him ever since I met you."

"I didn't make him do anything, man! This was his choice," Chris yells, backing up as Jared makes a grab for him. He moves to the side until he's out of arms reach, trying real fucking hard the whole time to keep himself a level head. He knows that this isn't any regular kind of scrap. "It was his choice, Jared."

And that takes all the fight right outta the champ, Chris thinks to himself, watching as Jared shrinks about three times in size and starts running a hand through his hair, face a damn shame as he starts to slowly lose it. Chris hopes to hell he don't lose his shit right here in Jensen's kitchen. Talk about an awkward situation.

"So, what, he doesn't..." Jared has to pause and wipe at his nose with the curve of his hand. He glances over at Chris from where he's standing in front of the fridge, and for one half of a moment Chris sees that kid -- the actual real young kid with the shaggy hair and the dimples and the two damn dogs that circled your legs 'til you tripped over one of 'em -- the kid that he knew all those years ago, when Jensen was happy every fuckin' day just because the two of them had started something secret. Jared clears his throat. "He doesn't remember anything about me anymore?"

Chris is quiet for a moment, brain going into overdrive trying to figure out how to approach this.

But then Jared won't stop staring at him, and he doesn't know what else to do other than shrug and say, "Sorry."

"Yeah, I bet you are," Jared grunts, and then he's running at him, and Chris doesn't know what else to do other than jump out of the way.

Jared runs head first into the fridge, and knocks himself out cold.

 

.

 

Jensen is about three blocks from home when his heart starts beating a little faster in a way that he knows he can't control, double thumping against the inside of his ribcage. It just about feels like his heart is about to pop right outta his chest, so he slows down to a walk, pausing to stretch out, feel the warmth of his muscles burning.

Shaking his head, he squints out over the water and resumes his jog at a much slower pace, feeling less focused than he was earlier, and maybe even a little detached.

 

.

 

Jared wakes up face down on a thick-piled carpet, with his mouth open and a string of drool tethering his bottom lip to the floor. He startles, inhaling sharp and quick, and brings a hand up to rub over his face. He blinks a few times, pain blooming from his forehead, down the bridge of his nose, and rolls over, groaning.

He focuses on the ceiling. Or tries to, anyway. It's high, made out of white painted wooden planks and beams, and. Jared frowns. It almost looks like --

"You okay?"

Shoulders startling, Jared inhales and rolls to the side, propping himself up on one elbow. His fingers coast over the spot he was drooling in earlier.

There's a kid standing at the edge of the sofa Jared has been laying in front of. There's a kid, and he's wearing the top half of a Batman costume, face mask and all, as well as a pair of dinosaur print pajama pants that are at least a couple inches too long.

"I..." Jared blinks a couple of times, and hazily looks around the room. Because if he didn't know any better, he'd say it was...

Before he can even manage to finish that train of thought, the kid turns around and walks out of the room, bellowing, "Daddy! He woke up! 'An he spit all over the carpet again!"

"What the fuck," Jared whispers, sitting up, wiping off his chin with the front of his shirt. He tries to center himself. But then the centering is out the window when he looks around the room again and thinks, there's no way, there is no way that this is --

Jared suffers what could possibly be a minor stroke when Jensen comes into the room wiping his hands in a dish towel, with the little kid tottering right behind him.

"Morning sunshine," Jensen smirks at him, Jensen, who seems completely unfazed by the little monster wandering around after him. He finished wiping off his hands, and then tosses the towel at Jared as he gets nearer, coming around the couch to stand above him. Jared goggles, and tries to focus in on Jensen's upside-down face. He's gotta be hallucinating, Chris must've clocked him good. Maybe he deserves it; the last thing he remembers is getting him up against that fridge. Jensen snorts at him, and toes Jared's shoulders with his bare feet. Jared starts trying to sit up. "Man, did you ever take a header off that roof. I thought you cracked your head open when you hit the ground. Is your shoulder okay? You've got a bruise on your forehead already, you're gonna look like you ran into a wall for a week."

Blinking at Jensen's rapid-fire of questions, Jared opens his mouth to respond, maybe, but is really really taken off guard when the kid wanders over and climbs right into Jared's lap nice as you like, thumb already in his mouth. Jared tenses up immediately, not used to having strange children climb into his lap. And then, an ending blow to the gut in a never ending parade of things that have fucked Jared's shit up so far this week, Jensen leans forward and kisses the top of his shoulder. Like it's nothing.

And Jared falls into it for one unguarded second, remembering just how it used to be. But then he remembers that there's an unidentified child in his lap, and he seems to have fallen into some mirror image, partially psychotic universe that has Jared living inside his old house with Jensen and a bruised face and the high ceilings and a spitty carpet and a kid...

"Jared," Jensen laughs, brushing the hair off of his forehead. Jared winces when Jensen accidentally touches his forehead, right over the already swollen spot. "Sorry. Your shoulder?"

Licking his lips, Jared tenses as the kid leans against his chest a little harder and snugs his head in just right, eyes closing as he relaxes against Jared's stomach like a little kitten, and frowns. "My shoulder? It's fine."

"Good," Jensen touches the side of his neck again as he pushes himself up from the floor. Jared catches him halfway up looking down at the kid in his lap and smiling a little, in this unguarded way that makes Jared's heart thump like crazy. "Dinner's almost ready to go, too. I got spaghetti."

Then Jensen is walking out of the room, leaving Jared sitting there cross-legged on the floor, with this tiny little thing in his lap that is unbearably warm and cuddly and wearing a Batman mask, for christ's sake. Jared takes a few deep breaths, looks around the room at what he knows used to be their living room furniture, and tries to center himself. Again.

Definitely hallucinating.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Oh my god," Is the first thing that Jensen says, when he comes through the front door and sees Liam sitting on the floor in front of the TV, happily watching an old episode of The Simpsons with an opened box of Animal Crackers next to him. "What happened to your head, buddy?"
> 
> Liam turns around with half an alligator hanging out of his mouth and grins extra wide, watching Jensen stand there in horror, eyes affixed to his son's head.
> 
> "You're home," Jared says, coming into the hallway sounding breathless. Jacob is in one arm with something spilled all down the front of his shirt.
> 
> Jensen knows that he looks like a giant idiot, standing there with a wide opened mouth and bug eyes, but he can't - doesn't - can't -
> 
> "What the hell happened to his hair, man?"

Jensen's wearing a button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows when Jared comes into the kitchen, scratching at the back of his head as he squints at the bright track lights hung over the kitchen island.

He must be better at remembering the little things than he thought, or maybe his sub conscious just has a thing for fine interior decorating, because he's never had a dream as real as this feels before. The way that everything is so palpable, like Jared is really standing in his and Jensen's kitchen, jesus, watching Jensen make spaghetti. Standing over an oven with his fancy shirt and his slacks that make his ass look really, really --

"Jacob fell asleep already?" Jensen asks, breaking Jared's concentration as he glances up from the pot. Jared startles as Jensen regards him so easily, with no hostility shrouded in his voice, no preemptive hurt expression thrown his way, or wound, tense shoulders. No resentment anywhere in the purse of his lips.

Jared frowns a little and goes to answer, when Jensen shakes his head and reaches for an onion.

"Damnit," He says, going for a knife with the other hand. "I knew he would do that if he didn't have his nap." He looks at Jared over his shoulder as he sets the onion down on the cutting board and brandishes his knife. "We're gonna be up all night 'cause he's not gonna want to fall back asleep, you know that?"

"Uh..." Jared crosses the tiled floor to sit at one of the stools behind the island. "Sorry? I can go wake him up..."

Snorting, Jensen starts chopping up the onion with one hand and stirring the sauce with the other, pausing to throw a few things into the pot before he leans to rest the lid on it. He turns around and leans against the counter opposite Jared with both hands braced behind him, staring right across the vegetable massacre and the loaves of bread and the little stainless steel bowl of fruit. Jared immediately feels so looked in upon, so uncomfortable, that he has to glance away.

"Man, you've been introduced to this kid, right? Once he's asleep, he..." Jensen trails off and then really starts looking at Jared. "You okay? You look... are you going to throw up?"

Jared swallows thickly and shakes his head, bracing himself against the counter with the palm of one hand. The sauce starts bubbling, Jared can hear the pot lid going, but Jensen ignores it. Instead, he reaches across the island and presses his palm against the curve of Jared's forehead. And all that Jared can do is notice the expensive looking watch draped around Jensen's wrist, Jensen's wrist, tanned and warm looking, and there's a little red scratch at the base of his hand.

"You could have a concussion," Jensen says, then, like the thought hadn't even occurred to him before. He lets his hand drop from Jared's forehead down to the side of his face, to cup at his jaw and press his thumb against Jared's chin. Jared tenses at the familiarity of the movement. "I told you not to try and do the lights by yourself. Your mama told you that. Who puts up Christmas lights in the rain, anyway?" He wanders back over to the oven, and takes the lid off of the pot to stir his sauce. He leans against the counter with one hip like they do this every night, make dinner and talk like they're a normal, functioning couple. "You deserve that concussion, actually."

Frowning, Jared rubs the side of his head as he reaches across the island, taking a piece of celery from the cutting board. He watches Jensen's lips as they twitch into a maybe smile so he bites the celery in half, then pops the other half in to chew them both at the same time. This psychological trip into some freaky loophole in Jared's measly existence is making him hungry.

"Maybe I should lay down for a minute," Jared finally concedes, starting to get up from the stool. Jensen nods and itches behind his ear as he puts the lid back on the pot, and starts across the kitchen to pull some dishes from the cupboard.

Jared notices he gets four plates.

"Did you put Jacob on the couch?" Jensen asks, walking back towards the oven, pausing to set the dishes on the counter. Jared scratches the back of his neck, and thinks back to how he'd just moved his legs and let the kid thump to the ground. He'd stayed asleep, and all.

Raising his eyebrows, Jared coasts away from the counter and back towards the doorway.

"Yeah," He says, double timing his steps so he can get back to the kid left on the carpet, and right his wrongs before Jensen has a chance to find out.

 

.

 

While Jensen had been finishing dinner, and after Jared had quietly picked Jacob up and deposited him safely on the couch, Jared had snuck upstairs and sluethed around in a style that James Bond himself would've been proud of. There was no way that all of this was real, being back in their old house, and Jared had stood in front of the big hall window for a second, staring at the rain pouring down outside. Okay, so that looked really real. But one time he'd had that dream that he was fucking Chace Crawford, and that had seemed pretty real at the time, too.

He peeks in every room he passes by as he makes his way down to what he's assuming is still his and Jensen's bedroom. First door on the left is the same linen closet it was when he was here last, then the bathroom, but beside that, what used to be a guest bedroom is now decked out with a bunk bed and child's toys spilling from every available drawer and plastic container. Brightly colored curtains, and bed sets that look like they came straight outta the kid section at IKEA. Jared flips the light on, and takes a better look at the bunk beds. Both mattresses look made up, pillows wrinkled and slept on, stuffed animals rested on both.

Feeling his heart flip flop, Jared shuts the light off and moves back out into the hall. There's a built-in shelf that Jared always used to bump into in the middle of the night: now it holds a few photos that he doesn't remember seeing before, especially the one of the two little boys decked out in full-on winter gear as they both look miserably up into the camera. He picks the simple black frame up.

It's exactly the sort of thing that would make Jensen laugh and laugh and laugh, better than any SEARS portrait or Leibowitz posed family photo.

Jared studies the two little boys in the photo, green eyes, light brown hair - the both of them. They're standing on what looks like the set of stairs that leads from the porch outside down into the backyard, a full inch of snow covering the tops of everything around them. They've both got thick winter pea coats on and are bundled up in brightly colored scarves, mittens, toques, and thick, warm looking hoods.

Smiling a little, even though he really doesn't mean to, Jared settles the photo back down against the shelf, and continues down the hallway.

He gets to their bedroom and pushes the door open with one hand. It creaks wide and Jared almost feels sick at the sight of it - the same bed that they'd had right up until the end, its identical side tables. Jensen even leaves the bathroom light on still, even though Jared was always on his ass to turn the damn thing off. Jared smiles a little and pushes the door to the bathroom open all the way. Creaks still, just like it used to.

Without giving it much thought, Jared crosses the room and crawls fully clothed into what he assumes is still his side of the bed, and thinks that if this is all a dream and by dream physics he also wakes up in real life the next time he opens his eyes, that he'd be a little sad.

This all feels so warm and familiar, Jared is already starting to forget what the sick-hot sun of Los Angeles ever felt like.

 

.

 

He wakes up slowly, and he realizes it's only because Jensen is sitting on the mattress at his hip, touching his shoulders, his chest, his stomach.

"Dinner's ready," Jensen says, quietly, and Jared blinks his eyes awake, trying to focus in on Jensen's gentle face above him. Jensen smiles and leans down, kissing him right on the mouth, and god it stops all the breath in Jared's lungs, makes his pulse race fast and his eyes go watery. It's easy and light, and Jensen doesn't think twice as he does it.

Jared opens his mouth, eyes closing,and Jared smiles against his lips and leans forward too, but then there's a clatter downstairs and the sound of two kids yelling at each other. It all sounds very dramatic already. Jensen groans and closes his eyes, leaning his forehead against Jared's as he exhales loudly, and then presses a kiss at the corner of Jared's mouth.

"C'mon," He says, finally, getting up off of the bed, patting Jared's bare ankle as he starts back towards the door.

Nodding, Jared pushes himself up onto his elbows and watches as Jensen disappears down the hallway, the sound of socked feet on the staircase before he heads into the living room to break up the fight. Jared sighs and flops back against the mattress, listening to the muffled sounds of Jensen telling them both to keep it down and get into the kitchen before he locks them both in the toy box together.

Jared startles at that, a bark of surprised, trapped laughter coming out in one short breath. Now, he is completely at a loss for words.

 

.

 

Dinner is interesting. Most of it is spent listening to the two boys argue, watching Jensen break it up, and then there's the one memorable incident when he feels about two inches tall as Jensen levels him with this daddy stare that says, 'why the hell are you sitting there not doing anything?'

"I wrote a story today," The eldest of the two, Jared has learned, though still not very old, says, wiggling around in his seat. He accidentally hits his spoon against the edge of his plate and jumps for its effort, but recovers quickly and resumes moving back and forth in the chair.

Jensen doesn't miss a beat, even though Jared is about fifty paces behind, and reaches across the table to take a noodle out of Jacob's hand before he has a chance to get it up his nose. "That's awesome, what'd you write it about?"

"A raccoon, who was Jewish," He says, reaching for his cup. He knocks his elbow against his plate somehow, and almost gets an elbow full of spaghetti sauce, but also somehow, Jensen intercepts that before it happens and gently moves his arm back, reaching to give him the drink as well. "It was 'suppose to be about what raccoons do in the day, but mine ate farmers instead."

Raising his eyebrows, Jared looks across the table with a smile on his face as he shakes his head, rounds up a good fork full of pasta, and plows it right into his mouth.

Freaky kids universe Jensen is an awesome cook.

"Why'd your raccoon eat the farmer?" Jensen asks, like this is all just part of an ongoing daily conversation. Jared has no idea if it actually is or not.

The kid shrugs and makes a face, picks a noodle up off of his plate with two fingers, and tips his head back to eat it. "He got hungry."

"Daddy fell off the roof today," Jacob says out of nowhere, covered in sauce and what looks like the spices off of the garlic bread.

Jared's belly flips and then flops in a warm, solid movement. He'd been suspecting it all along, but to hear it out loud, it makes his eyes go a little soft and his mouth go a lot dry.

"You fell off the roof!" The eldest almost shouts, looking overwhelmed with the news as he goggles at Jared. Jared doesn't know what to do or how to deal with such direct attention from such a tiny kid. He almost feels shy, which is quite possibly the most bizarre feeling ever.

Jacob nods his head and starts picking a crust of garlic bread apart. "I saw him," He says.

"He was trying to put the Christmas lights up," Jensen supplies, giving Jared an odd look. "Are you sure you're okay? You don't.... you seem kind of weird."

Opening his mouth to answer, Jared is inevitably cut off by Jacob yelling, "Liam, don't!"

"Seriously," Jensen tells them both, taking his attention off of Jared in a tail spin of a second. "I will string you both up with the Christmas lights."

Jacob starts pouting and Liam resumes eating his spaghetti without another word, so Jared figures that it's just one more crisis averted, and goes back to his dinner without much other thought. Jensen gives him another look, but Jared just tries to smile as he reaches for a third piece of garlic bread.

At least this Jensen doesn't burn everything.

 

.

 

"I gotta go to the studio tomorrow," Jensen tells him, when they're both in the middle of doing the dishes. He's elbow deep in soapy water, because he's one of those people who like to wash the dishes before putting them into the actual dish washer. Jared never understood it 'til he met Jensen's mama.

Jared nods and wipes his plate off before leaning over to stack it into the dish washer. He's been appointed loader tonight.

"Okay," He says, standing back up and reaching for another dish. It's a white coffee mug with a picture of Jacob on the side of it.

Jensen raises his eyebrows, and watches Jared's moves carefully as he washes another plate free of spaghetti sauce and leftovers, and hands the plate over.

"And?..." He asks, looking at Jared expectantly.

Frowning, Jared loads the next dish Jensen hands him, and looks over, mind racing. Even in his dreams he doesn't know what Jensen wants. "And..."

"And, make sure you don't forget to take Liam to get his hair cut at two..." Jensen trails off, and gives Jared that careful, considering expression again, like he's looking right the hell into Jared's soul. He doesn't really like the feeling all that much, it makes him feel exposed. He's not used to anyone staring at him that carefully, that adoringly, anymore. "Are you sure that you're alright? You don't seem like yourself."

Jared shakes his head and reaches for another dish. "I'm fine," He says, half smiling. "Just got a head ache. Guess I banged my head harder than I thought."

Looking satisfied at the answer, Jensen nods and goes back to his wet dish cloth. Jared, on the other hand, decides that he definitely banged his head a lot harder than he thought.

 

.

 

Jensen is in the office on the phone with his mama when Jacob comes out of nowhere with teary eyes and a thumb in his mouth. He makes a beeline straight for Jared, who had otherwise been sitting on the couch, minding his own business.

Offering a little awkward smile when Jacob gets within arms length, they both slow to a stop and regard each other. Jared always knew that little kids were smarter than they let on, and that's all pretty obvious as Jacob studies him carefully, making Jared's heart race at how much he looks like Jensen when he was a kid. Big eyes, two rows of crooked baby teeth.

"I hate Liam," He says, finally, climbing up onto the couch and crawling into Jared's lap. Jared lifts his arm without thinking about it to let Jacob under, but feels about as tense as a strung wire when the kid starts snuggling into his chest again, blinking his teary eyes until one drops out and rolls down his cheek.

Jared looks down at the top of the kid's head and feels the tightness in his shoulders fading just a little bit when Jacob leans his cheek against Jared's arm and relaxes, curled up in his lap like this is something as regular as Jared's morning runs.

"What'd he do?" Jared decides to ask, giving this whole dad thing a go. If this is just a dream then it's not like he can impose any long term psychological issues on the tiny guy by saying the wrong thing. Without thinking about it, he brushes Jacob's hair off of his face, and gets a sniffly, wet sounding nose for his efforts.

Jacob hiccups, and tucks one hand up near his face, his thumb coming out and going right into his mouth.

"Took my blanket," He sighs, voice sounding hoarse. Jared can feel his eyes drifting open and closed, eyelashes brushing against his forearm.

Feeling a little swell of warmth in his chest, Jared tightens the grip he's got, holding him a little closer, and leans down to speak into the back of his head, hair tickling Jared's chin.

"Go to sleep," He says, quietly.

A few minutes later Jacob is breathing evenly, eyes closed and cheek pressed warm against Jared's arm.

 

.

 

"My mom says dad broke his foot again, fell on an icy patch," Jensen says, coming into the living room. "I keep telling him..."

He trails off when he sees Jared on the couch, both feet up on the table with Jacob strewn across his chest, one tiny foot dangling between Jared's legs, both arms flung out to each side, one hand cuffed up under Jared's chin. They're both asleep and, also, possibly drooling.

Okay, probably drooling.

"Hey," Jensen whispers, walking around the back of the couch, running his fingers through Jared's hair. Jared snorts but doesn't give much response other than that. Smiling more, he coasts his fingers down the side of Jared's warm neck, and bends down so his mouth is right next to Jared's ear. He says, "Jared, hey."

Jared snorts and startles awake, head coming up so quick he almost gets a head rush. Jensen starts laughing from where he's still settled behind the couch, but reaches forward to hold onto Jared's shoulder. Jared turns around, wiping sleep from one eye, and adjusts the grip he has on Jacob, who was in the process of sliding off of his lap but is currently still asleep.

"Hey," Jared says, in that tone of voice that implies he wasn't asleep at all, no way, just resting his eyes, is all. Jensen laughs at him again.

One hand still on the side of Jared's neck, Jensen leans forward again, and looks at Jacob from over Jared's shoulder.

"Want me to pick him up?" Jensen asks, one arm coming all the way around to wrap around Jared's chest from behind. In one inexplicable moment, Jared feels so warm and so loved that he's almost sick at the naivety of it all.

Jared shakes his head, shakes the feeling off, and says, "Nah, I got him," still sounding all sleepy and looking undeniably tousled.

"Okay, well," Jensen's hand is still at the side of Jared's neck, fingers touching his ear. Jared glances down at the kid - his kid, somehow - and gets a gut bomb so gentle and warm that it sends him for a loop. It's only Jensen's fingers against his ear that drag him away from staring. "Get up and put him into bed, so we can go to bed."

Head sagging back against the thick cushions on the couch, Jared even smiles a little bit as Jensen leans in and kisses his mouth upside down.

 

.

 

When Jared goes in to tuck Jacob into bed, Liam is already asleep in the top bunk, snoring loudly, one hand dangling through the wooden beams.

He drops Jacob against the mattress, still not as gently as he thinks he probably should, and pulls the blankets up around his shoulders. He stands up and rights himself, thinks about it for a second, and then moves in again, taking the orange blanket from the foot of the bed. He lays it right beside Jacob's hand.

"Night, buddy," He whispers, standing up to peek over the top of the bunk bed, at Liam wrapped in his blankets, mouth hanging wide open. Same bottom lip as Jensen's, Jared thinks without meaning to. He reaches up and touches Liam's shoulder gently, not really expecting much, especially now that he firmly believes that Jacob could sleep through the house caving in.

Liam's eyes pop open at the gentle touch and Jared startles, almost taking a step back. But all he does is smile sleepily, mumble, "Hi, daddy," into his pillow, and watch Jared through his eyes drifting back closed.

And Jared stands there for a long while, almost choked up, quiet in the dark as he watches these two little boys who are both so fucking unbelievable that Jared would have a real hard time actually believing it if he wasn't standing here, looking at them himself.

He's so proud of them, even though he knows he has no real reason to be.

 

.

 

Jensen's in the bathroom flossing his teeth when Jared closes the bedroom door quietly behind him. His stomach starts to do flip flops just looking at the bed; the shirt casually thrown over the foot of it, and Jensen's pants hanging off of the closet door knob. It's all so familiar and yet so far away that he doesn't know whether he wants to stay and soak it all in, or get the hell out of dodge before he starts getting used to it again.

The bed is still unmade, probably from this morning, which Jared can't quite get his head around, because even though he knows he must've been here for it, for the waking up and the seeing Jensen beside him and probably going downstairs to make breakfast and stand around and be like a little family, he doesn't remember a damn thing. The last time he remembers waking up, it was with a bad taste in his mouth.

And he really feels bad about it, which is when he realizes that he's already in too deep. This is all a fantasy, a really long, realistic dream, and he's gonna wake up any second, by himself in his hotel room and he is going to be completely quietly devastated that it's all over. He's gonna be a different guy when he wakes up, a guy who's gonna clear well know about all those chances that he lost, how every time Jensen brought up the idea of kids Jared would make a joke and look away.

Jared knows that this must be what Jensen wanted from him all along, and goddamnit, now he knows that he should've listened.

Quietly, he sits down at the edge of the bed, and listens to Jensen moving things around in the bathroom. All sounds Jared has heard before, every night for years. The clink of his watch and rings settling on the counter, the sound of him brushing his teeth, knocking something over or dropping a ring down the sink and swearing, quietly talking to himself and mulling his appearance over in the mirror.

Jensen comes out of the bathroom as Jared is thinking about all of these things.

"How's your head?" He asks, and when Jared looks up, he's standing there in a pair of flannel pants and nothing else. Jared knows this from how low they come to sit on his hips, and he gets so hot and so hard so fast he feels dizzy.

That was one thing that he and Jensen had never fucked up, the sex together.

"Fine," Jared tells him, cause it's not his head that's bothering him. He smiles a bit and tries not to stare, but he hasn't seen or had this in so damn long, and isn't that funny, how all that shit comes back to you when you know everything was always your fault. "Banged it pretty hard, I guess."

Jensen walks over to him and stands right between his legs, one hand coming up to palm at the side of Jared's head.

"Like I said, you probably concussed yourself," He tells Jared, hips relaxing, an inch closer to Jared's face. "I can call the doctor tomorrow and see if he can fit you in. Do you remember it?"

Leaning back a little, away and out of Jensen's touch, Jared's fingers start to itch where they're resting on each knee, and even though he knows that in this universe he's got all the right to put his hands wherever he wants on Jensen's body, it still doesn't feel right. Not when he knows how it really is.

"Remember what?" He asks, and it makes Jensen smile.

Jensen moves forward with him, taking his guarded curiosity as an invitation to rest his knee on the mattress between Jared's thighs, to get right over him.

"Remember being an idiot and climbing up onto the roof," Jensen explains, bowing his head a little. Jared's belly flip flops and he can't help it, can't help it can't handle it and can't stop himself from doing it, just like those few times they'd broke up fucked each other after the fact, he rests his hand on Jensen's side. "Oh yeah, and then you tried to lasso the Christmas lights onto the other side of the house, because, somehow, you thought that was a good idea. Jacob thought you fell off the roof on purpose and he started laughing at first."

Smiling a little despite himself, Jared shakes his head and looks up into Jensen's face. "Definitely don't remember that. He laughed at me?"

"Yeah, well, he's kind of mean spirited," Jensen laughs quietly, one hand still coasting over the side of Jared's head. Jared's brain goes fuzzy and warm at the way he's being touched. Jensen leans in and kisses Jared's temple, saying against his warm skin, "But that's Jacob, isn't it."

He doesn't ask it like a question, and Jared knows that it's not. He nods anyways, though, and tips his head to the side when Jensen's mouth keeps trailing down the side of his face, going for the line of his jaw, and Jared can't help it, hears himself make a little noise when Jensen gets to that spot right at the base of his ear.

"You're so easy," Jensen whispers, laughing quietly as he brings his other knee up, and straddles one of Jared's legs. Jared's heart starts thumping in his chest, maybe for the first time but definitely loud enough to resonate up near his throat.

Jared starts to move backwards, falling onto both elbows. And he regards Jensen carefully, looking up at the guy who still looks just like the one that Jared used to know.

"You know me pretty well, huh," Jared says, stupidly, but it makes Jensen smile and move forward, resting both of his hands at either side of Jared's shoulders.

Sitting on Jared's hips, Jensen kisses the corner of his mouth and says, "Pretty well would be an understatement."

"Yeah," Jared agrees easily, and then Jensen is kissing him like they used to, a real kiss that makes his eyes start to close and his hands move up to get Jensen nearer, closer, cause that's all he ever really wanted back before he let the machine get him, to keep Jensen close and nobody closer.

Jensen deepens the kiss, moves back to mouth down the front of Jared's chin, his hands sliding under Jared's thin shirt, over his belly and back down. He's working on Jared's buttons and Jared just lays back and lets him, stares at the ceiling and generally feels a whole lot of unhelpful, but it seems like Jensen usually runs the show here anyways, and, for once in his life, Jared is completely happy to just let him be there. Front and center.

 

.

 

The next morning, Jared wakes to the blare of the alarm clock, and Jensen snoring against his shoulder. His mind starts to race and he takes inventory on things circa right now: Jensen, house, two kids, alarm clock, right. Jesus.

Reaching over, he hits whatever buttons on the alarm until it turns itself off or goes to sleep or whatever else it does. Jensen stirs on his shoulder, then starts grumbling, and shifts around for a moment before sitting right up.

"Call time," He says, maybe to himself or maybe to Jared, and then he's dragging himself out of bed and shuffling off to the bathroom like it's all business as usual.

Jared rolls over a bit and actually gets a look at the numbers on the clock this time. It's only quarter after five, and he doesn't know whether he should get up and follow Jensen into the bathroom, get up and wander downstairs... Do kids need anything at this time in the morning, or should he just roll over and go back to sleep?

The clock says 5:35 when Jensen comes out of the bathroom again, still bleary eyed. He's also still wearing his flannel bottoms, but now he's got a t-shirt and an open hoodie on over that; Jared blinks, and rubs his eyes.

"I'm late," Jensen yawns, shoving his feet into a pair of sneakers without bothering to put the heels in right, as he shuffles over to the side of the bed and stoops down to kiss Jared goodbye. Jared doesn't even think about pretending not to let him, but grimaces a little when Jensen yawns again when he's about an inch and a half away from Jared's face and leaning over to grab something from the side table. "Don't forget about the hair cut," He reminds Jared, then a set of headlights flash through the window and Jared can hear an engine idling outside. Jensen makes a face, and grabs another jacket on his way to the door. "I'll be back for dinner, remember we have that thing tonight."

And then he's out the door and creeping down the hallway, and Jared is still laying there, staring at the ceiling.

That thing tonight, he thinks. Right.

 

.

 

He assumes that kids probably don't sleep past six thirty or seven, so he gets up and sneaks downstairs, trying not to wake them up. First thing he does is put the coffee on, and secondly, he navigates himself back to the office. The door creaks open and he reaches in to turn the lights on, standing there in his underwear with the twisted waist band and bed head.

There are two desks on either side of the room: one, littered with all kinds of stacks of paper and other office junk, and two, marginally tidier but not by much, with a closed laptop, old coffee cup, and a few moderately organized stacks of notebooks and scripts.

Jared wanders over to them, and quickly finds that his desk is the one that looks like someone threw a filing cabinet at it.

"Huh," He says out loud, sitting down in the chair.

He thought maybe he'd take a second to get his bearings and it'd all come back, but that doesn't seem to be working. So, he decides that his plan B will be opening his laptop, and logging onto an account that says JARED. It seems like the best thing to do.

Twenty minutes later, after a brief scroll through approximately one hundred million unread email messages and a short foray through his IMDB, Jared finds that he and Jensen are both nothing short of successful. The two well known fags who manage to balance both celebrity and family. They went to a GLBT fundraiser a week ago. They took pictures with Ellen.

Or, apparently, anyways.

 

.

 

He wanders back upstairs around six thirty to see if there's something he should be screwing up up there, and finds Liam half hanging out of the bunk bed, literally defying physics with most of his body hanging off of the mattress.

"Morning, daddy," Jacob says, quietly, from behind his thumb and blanket. And that's where Jared's day begins.

 

.

 

Breakfast goes pretty well, all things considered.

They both seem satisfied enough when Jared sticks a bowl of cereal down in front of each of them, and then back tracks to get two plastic cups of orange juice as well. Jared sits across from them with his own bowl of cereal, two pieces of whole grain toast, an apple and coffee, and listens to the two of them talking.

It's actually pretty funny, listening to the two of them. They're two kids to be really proud of, Jared decides, wondering if most kids are this awesome, or if it's only his.

"My shark will beat your raptor," Jacob says at one point, which is apparently something that you say when you want to stir shit up with your older brother. Jared tries to think back, but can't remember any arguments between he and Jeff that sound anything at all like what he's hearing now. He and Jeff used to mainly just beat each other up, but that had stopped when Jared turned into the bigger one.

Jared bites into his toast and reaches for his coffee as Liam scoffs, and clinks his spoon around his bowl. "No, my raptor has four hands. It's not gonna happen."

"Liar," Jacob hisses, and he says it with so much sincerity that Jared has to hide his laugh behind his toast. "Your ugly raptor has two hands and they're so tiny he can't even reach me! Or his own face!"

Liam scowls across the table and rests his chin against his hand. "My raptor's hands are not tiny," He says, quietly offended.

"Tiny tiny tiny!" Clearly Jacob knows exactly what buttons to push, because that really turns Liam's crank, and he gets so pissed of that Jared's almost sure he's gonna have to intercept as Liam throws his arm out and points his spoon at Jacob angrily.

Looking over at Jared, Liam is clearly trying to control himself as he says, "Daddy, tell him my raptor's hands are not tiny."

"They're tiny," Jacob says with conviction, eating a spoonful of Cheerios with a smug look on his face.

Jared is about to reply when a phone starts ringing. Both boys watch him, waiting for The Definitive Answer, as Jared gets up from the table and starts trying to figure out what direction the ringing is coming from. As he grabs a piece of toast for the expedition, he says, "Raptors are pretty big, Jake, I dunno."

"Yeah they are," Liam says, nodding his head, almost growling with conviction.

The friendly debate continues as Jared crosses the room, trying to locate the sound.

He finds what he assumes is his cell phone in the pocket of his jacket hanging by the back door. It's definitely fancy and not a lot unlike the one he uses now, so it's not the technology that throws him. It's the name on the caller display that does.

Katie, it reads, with an L.A. area code. If there's one thing that Jared should damned well know.

"Hello," He answers, plugging one ear to block out the sound of Liam starting to shriek about whatever the fuck.

Down in Los Angeles, Katie laughs, easy and warm. "You sound busy," She tells him, giggling quietly.

"Yeah." Jared laughs uncomfortably, and cringes when Jacob starts yelling back at Liam, tiny voice angry and heated. "What... are you calling for?"

Katie shuffles some papers around and is still laughing under her breath as she says, "All good news, Jay."

"Oh," Jared says. Jay.

She lists off a bunch of stuff that Jared has no chance of remembering, things like emails she sent that have all the information he needs about a shoot in January, and a script that has to be read through. She tells him they're leasing a penthouse in Burbank, and he has to sign his name on a whole file folder full of dotted lines, and that Liam is going to some place called St. Finbar's, but she needs Jensen to send her those references before the second week of January, because he's due to start on the fifteenth.

"Okay," Jared says, again, when she laughs at him and says she had figured she'd just leave him a voicemail. He has no fucking clue what's going on, and just hopes that he doesn't sound like that out loud. "That's... a lot of stuff to remember."

Laughing again, Katie starts clacking away at a keyboard or handheld or something, as she says, "I know, oh and listen, you need to be down here for your read thrus next week, then again just after New Years. Jensen said he was bringing the kids on January eleventh, was that it?" Some more shuffling. "Or the tenth. Anyway, I've got you on a four a.m. flight next week so you can get that extra day there. And... I think that's it."

"Okay," Jared says again-again, nodding a little for emphasis. He unplugs the finger out of his ear and looks back over to the kitchen table, where the two boys seem to have fallen into some kind of stale mate as they both sit there quietly, scowling at one another from behind their respective cereal bowls.

Katie kind of makes this fond girly noise at him, but then cuts herself off to ask, sounding curious, "Hey, why are you still at home, anyways? Doesn't Liam have school at eight thirty?"

"Oh shit," Jared breathes, looking over at the microwave clock. Sure enough, it's 8:45. "I gotta go."

Then Katie is laughing some more as she says, "I'll fax you the lease agreement."

"Yeah, yeah," Jared says easily, already moving to close his cell phone as he hurries over to the table, and pulls Liam off of his cereal bowl.

 

.

 

The two of them stand in the kitchen doorway quietly as Jared runs around, trying to pull a pair of sneakers on one-handed while sleuthing around for any kind of clue as to what school his kid attends. Or, alternatively, should currently be attending.

"What are you doing, daddy?" Jacob asks around his thumb, standing beside his big brother, who is currently dressed in a pair of brown corduroy pants and an inside out pyjama shirt. His coat is still undone, and one of his mittens are hanging from the string out of his sleeve.

Jared hurries past them both, resting one hand on the top of Liam's head when he almost knocks him over. He makes a bee line for the office, there's gotta be something there, some kind of parent teacher notice, or enrollment form, or, or - Jared rifles through a file folder on Jensen's desk with a label that says LIAM, SCHOOL on it, and quickly comes up victorious.

"Aha," He grins, reading the sheet header over quickly. Collingwood School, Preparing young people to thrive in meaningful lives. He kid is totally enrolled in a prep school, and Jared can count his age on both hands. He's gonna chalk that one up to Jensen, or Jensen's mama. He turns around to find his two boys in the doorway of the office, still standing there, watching him curiously. He glances from the notice up to Liam, and then back down again. "I guess you need a uniform or something, huh?"

 

.

 

With Jacob on one hip because nothing slows you down like little toddler legs, Jared manages to navigate the school halls with Liam trailing behind him, picking his nose. He uses the match the teacher's name on the paper with each sign on every door tactic, and finally finds the right room to deposit his son into, and does so, the three of them almost crashing through the door.

"Sorry we're late," Jared apologizes, a little out of breath from heaving Jacob up three flights of stairs. The teacher is a little blond thing with bright blue eyes and a staggering smile, and she regards him warmly right away, she doesn't even seem to notice how Liam's tie is twisted, and he's wearing two different colored socks. Jared scratches the back of his head and laughs through his teeth. "Lost track of time this morning."

She comes over from where she was huddled around a case of educational toys with a few other children, and smiles down at Liam, crouching to be at his level when she gets close enough.

"Don't worry," She says, looking up at Jared as she starts unbuttoning Liam's coat. Jacob starts playing with the shell of Jared's ear, his other thumb still firmly attached in his mouth. "We were just getting ready for a fire drill."

Liam seems particularly unfazed by this piece of news, but when Jared sees the expectant look on the teacher's face, he kneels down and tugs Liam around to face him, brushing some sticky stuff off his face in the process. Jared doesn't know where it came from, or what it once was.

"Did you hear that? Fire drill, that's pretty exciting," Jared tells him, though he doesn't get much in return. Jacob rests his head on Jared's shoulder and reaches out to pat Liam on the head, not stopping until he finally pokes Liam in the forehead and gets an annoyed slap in return for his efforts.

Without saying anything, Jared reaches out and takes Jacob's hand back, tucking it against his side as he goes back to Liam, watching as he looks at his teacher and blushes a bit.

"Okay, well. I'll be back at two thirty to get you, right?" He asks, waiting until Liam nods before he stands up and bounces Jacob's head a bit against his shoulder. Jacob laughs into the collar of Jared's winter jacket and wraps one arm around the back of his neck. "Maybe we'll go get some hot chocolate after your hair cut, huh?"

That brings a real smile to Liam's face and he nods, leaning in to give Jared's legs a half-assed hug before he turns away and starts over to where the rest of his classmates are crawling all over themselves to get into the box of toys sat in the middle of the carpet.

"See you," His teacher says quietly, mostly to Jacob, as she leans in and pokes him in the chin gently, before taking a step back and heading over to the kids.

When Jared shuts the classroom door behind him, he does it with an honest smile on his face, and. And, maybe this isn't as hard as he always thought it would be.

 

.

 

He and Jacob are hanging out at a park near their house when he notices the paparazzi for the first time.

Jared frowns at them over his shoulder, keeping his back to them as he pushes Jacob on the swing, listening to him laugh and beg to go higher. But the whole time he can see them, two different guys in the parking lot and one more in the bushes only oh, twenty feet away. All of them are dressed in black and are wearing sunglasses even though it's four degrees out and has been overcast since late November.

When Jacob gets tired of swinging he runs over to the slide, kicking wood chips behind him as he hurries over to the ladder and starts climbing, mouth hanging open in a grin as he watches Jared from his spot up high.

"Catch me! Catch me!" He yells, throwing himself into the tube. Jared keeps one eye over his shoulder as he listens to Jacob's boots thumping through the tube slide, and even though he puts his hands out to catch Jacob with, Jacob comes crashing into Jared's legs instead, a mess of laughter and squeals.

Jacob tears off across the park, dropping one of his mittens along the way and leaving Jared to follow after him with the same frown on his face, even as he stoops down to pick the forgotten mitten up. The two who were in the parking lot are inching closer, camera flashes starting to go off despite the fact that it's still complete daylight out.

His phone starts going off as he gets to the base of the pirate ship Jacob is climbing all over. So, tucking the teeny mitten into his pocket, Jared flips the phone open without bothering to check the caller display.

"Hello," He greets, not meaning to sound as unkind as it ends up being.

Jensen laughs, and something crackles in the background, like plastic being opened. "Man, you sound awesome."

"I'm with Jacob at the park," Jared explains, leaning against a picnic bench to watch Jacob as he runs around in circles, laughing wildly, cheeks flushed red with excitement and the cold. "And there are photographers like, twenty feet away."

He scowls at them again, just for good measure, and feels like that should get his point across well and fine: do not fuck with my kid while I am in striking distance.

"That sucks," Jensen tells him, sounding a lot like he's frowning, so Jared makes a little 'yeah, I agree' noise in the back of his throat. "Are they yelling at you yet?"

Jared shakes his head and gives Jacob a big grin and thumbs up when he starts yelling for him, asking Jared to watch as he does this and that and then almost breaks his neck jumping from one wooden platform to another.

"No," He tells Jensen, frowning when Jacob turns his back to him. "Jacob hasn't noticed them yet, either."

More plastic rustling on Jensen's end of the line, then the snap-click like he's opening a bottle of water or juice.

"Well, I'm outta here at five-thirty," Jensen says, pausing to take a long chug of whatever it is he's drinking. "We can go out for dinner or something, they cancelled that gala tonight, 'cause I guess the CEO of the charity was embezzling money, and -- "

Jared makes a little snorting noise despite himself.

"Yeah," Jensen continues. "So anyway, there's this awesome new Thai place that just opened, Julie was telling me about it. I'm kind of down for Vera's, though."

Jared keeps an eye on the photographers as they break the lease line between parking lot, and the green grass of the park.

"Sounds good," Jared tells him, watching as Jacob turns around and looks right at the parking lot, like he heard something. He sees the paparazzi right away, and immediately the smile drops from his face and he turns in Jared's direction, hurrying down off of the platform and across the grass to where Jared is still standing, half leaning against the picnic bench. Jared puts one arm out to rest his hand against the back of Jacob's head as he comes right up and grabs Jared around the leg. "Hey, I'll call you later, okay?"

Jensen makes a 'yeah, yeah' noise, and after a quick couple of goodbyes, they each hang up the phone.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Jared asks, tucking the phone away and bending down to eye level with Jacob, like Liam's teacher had done. Jacob's frowning a quiet pout, and rubs one eye with the curve of his dirty looking hand.

He reaches up without saying anything, and Jared picks him up without thinking. Jacob wraps one arm around the back of Jared's neck and sticks his thumb in his mouth, twisting around to look over at the parking lot, where the cameras are going crazy with flashes, and the three men are starting to inch closer.

"I don't like those guys," Jacob finally says, quietly, tucking his face into the side of Jared's neck.

Jared sends the three photographers the dirtiest eye he can manage as they start out of the park and over to where his SUV is illegally parked on the street.

 

.

 

"Oh my god," Is the first thing that Jensen says, when he comes through the front door and sees Liam sitting on the floor in front of the TV, happily watching an old episode of The Simpsons with an opened box of Animal Crackers next to him. "What happened to your head, buddy?"

Liam turns around with half an alligator hanging out of his mouth and grins extra wide, watching Jensen stand there in horror, eyes affixed to his son's head.

"You're home," Jared says, coming into the hallway sounding breathless. Jacob is in one arm with something spilled all down the front of his shirt.

Jensen knows that he looks like a giant idiot, standing there with a wide opened mouth and bug eyes, but he can't - doesn't - can't -

"What the hell happened to his hair, man?"

Pushing Jacob's dirty hands away from his face, Jared grins sheepishly and laughs a little under his breath. "Funny story," He starts. "I kind of, uh, just told the girl to cut his hair the way he wanted it to be cut. And he, uh, wanted... that."

"Oh my god," Jensen says again, scrubbing one hand over his face as he drops his duffel bag at his feet and starts into the living room. Halfway there Jacob starts reaching his arms out and trying to get Jensen's attention, so Jensen back-tracks and holds Jacob as Jared hands him over, already brushing the bits of he doesn't even know what off of his shirt.

Jensen carefully walks through the living room, and kneels down beside Liam.

"Nice hair," He says, trying not to look completely mortified as Liam turns towards him with this crooked, ridiculous hair cut. There's even a buzzed portion, for christ's sake. Jensen turns back to Jared and hisses, "How the hell did she get you to talk her into this?"

Shrugging, Jared follows after Jensen, and props himself up against the arm of the couch, extending an arm when Jacob wiggles out of Jensen's grasp and comes running full speed at him, cackling when Jared reaches forward to start up the tickle fingers.

"That's awesome," Jensen says, to nobody in particular. He doesn't sound all that pissed off or sad, maybe just like this is another one of those things that he's just gonna have to buckle down and deal with. He trails back out of the living room, looking bleary eyed and entirely confused as to how the last ten minutes have even happened. "I'm gonna go have a shower," He concedes, already starting up the staircase. "And then we're going out for food."

Liam rolls onto his back and stares up at Jared upside down.

"I think he likes it," He says, confidently, as Homer gets hit in the stomach with a canon ball on-screen.

Jared laughs and pokes at the top of his son's head with his bare toes.

 

.

 

They all pile into the SUV, and as Jared is fumbling around with Liam's car seat buckle, Jensen climbs into the passenger seat and settles down comfortably. He doesn't turn around until it's been a good thirty seconds of Jared struggling enough with the seat to start grunting.

He finally gets the stupid belt clipped together, and looks up with a forehead of sweaty bangs to see Jensen, Liam and Jacob, all staring at him carefully. Jacob's sucking his thumb with wide, sleepy eyes, and Jensen looks hungry.

"It's harder than it looks," Jared says, defensively, taking a step back to close the door.

When he gets around to the driver's seat Jensen is on his Blackberry, scrolling through whatever the fuck.

"So where are we going again?" Jared asks, starting up the ignition, reaching behind him for the seat belt.

Without looking up from his phone, Jensen reaches over to turn on the sweet little Sirius radio they've got set up, and says, "Vera's. Screw the Thai."

"Mmm, burgers," Jared says absentmindedly, because if there's one thing he remembers about Vancouver it's the restaurants, as he throws the car into reverse and starts backing out of the driveway.

 

.

 

Jensen's cutting Jacob's hamburger into something that looks a lot like what Jared used to feed Harley and Sadie, and Liam is sitting at his elbow, nattering away to nobody in particular as he wiggles around in his seat and dips his french fries into the lake of ketchup threatening to compromise everything else on his plate.

"One at a time," Jensen tells Jacob, making Jacob look him in the eye, hold up one finger and nod before he backs away, reaching across for his glass of water. He still keeps one eye on Jacob carefully picking up each chunk of hamburger as he starts in on his own two burger special, both elbows rested on the edge of the table.

Holding his hamburger in one hand and chowing down on his fries with the other, Jared asks, "How was your thing today? The shoot?"

"Eh." Jensen shrugs, and keeps his eyes on Jared across the table piled with grease and meat and other debilitating things. The stare is so intimate it makes Jared's skin hot, makes him want to look away and stare at the floor or the wall or anything that isn't Jensen's wide eyes. "It was a whole lotta hurry up and wait, you know. Be glad when it's over."

Jared pouts his bottom lip out in agreement and nods, knowing what that feels like. Felt like. He arches his eyebrows over his burger, and takes a massive bite.

"Oh, hey." Jensen sets his burger down on the plate to reach across and pick all the fallen bits off of the front of Jacob's shirt. "Did Katie phone?"

A question that Jared most definitely knows the answer to. He nods, firmly, and starts picking a piece of lettuce out of his front teeth. "Yeah, she did."

The look Jensen levels at him is daunting at best, and it's only a couple of seconds before Jared realizes that that's the expression that tells him this is when you're supposed to continue. Liam sneezes, and sends whatever was in his mouth flying across his plate and the rest of the table.

Kids are fucking gross, Jared is coming to realize, as he leans across to sweep it up with his napkin and tell Jensen, "I wrote it all down. All I really remember is that she's faxing the lease agreement? I wrote everything on a post it. That I stuck to the counter in the kitchen."

Jensen's eyebrows continue to arch in that golden way of his, and Jared is pretty sure that he's in for it for a couple of seconds, before Jensen's face cracks right down the middle and he laughs like Jared remembers he used to, the fuck you are so big and stupid but oh my god, so endearing one that makes Jared's face smile a big 'ole grin, too.

Grinning back at Jensen across the table, Jared can barely tear his eyes away to go back to his burger.

 

.

 

"Tell me when you're asleep, okay?" Liam whispers into the darkness, as Jared quietly clicks their bedroom door closed.

Smiling, he leans against the door frame and listens to Jacob as he confidently says, "Okay."

He heads back down the hallway just as Jensen is coming up the stairs, looking sleepy and ready for the day to be done with, dressed in his sleeping pants and an old t-shirt. Jared smiles when he sees him.

"Hey," Jared says quietly, trying to step lightly on the wooden floor as Jensen waits for him at the top of the stairs, body relaxed, face soft and unguarded as Jared approaches. It's a face Jared hasn't seen in a long time.

He's starting to remember all the little things that his Jensen used to tell him, all the hints that this was all he'd ever wanted, that one night they'd been laying in bed half drunk together, and Jared quietly listened as Jensen described a life a lot like this for the two of them. Jared never knew what to say when Jensen told him things that made his heart pump stronger, but maybe it was only that he'd never really known what he wanted for himself all along.

Jared stretches his arm out as he comes next to Jensen, and Jensen, without hesitation, smiles and leans into him, bumping his forehead against the inside of Jared's arm before curling into his side and heading down the hallway beside him. He's so warm and sleepy and Jared's never met a human so alive since, never wanted to touch someone more than he does Jensen.

He doesn't know why he never got it, before.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Ow," Jared concedes, bending his leg up to rub at the spot Jensen wronged. "That hurt."
> 
> Jensen laughs, breathless from the short fight, as he holds onto his side and grins over at Jared. "Tough shit."
> 
> "Oh yeah," Jared taunts, getting his foot back in Jensen's face, sticking it right in his nose and almost taking his eye out with his big toe.
> 
> Now Jensen is really laughing, this desperate snickering as he tries to push Jared's foot away and inflict pain on him at the same time. It's a hard dance to do, but Jared can see that Jensen's really mastered it over the years.
> 
> "You're such an asshole," Jensen finally says, shoving Jared's foot away by the ankle. Jared grins, chin against his chest, as he lays his leg right across Jensen's lap, heel of his foot rested on the arm chair at the opposite side of the couch.
> 
> Jared wiggles his foot around again as Jensen moves for his beer. "Character flaw," He says, watching Jensen's shoulders bounce as he snorts.

Jared lays awake late into the night, with Jensen sleeping quietly next to him, knocked out from a day full of filming and the two boys.

In fact, Jared thinks that he should be feeling the same way, but instead he finds himself unable to even close his eyes. Instead, he stares up at the ceiling, the same ceiling he used to fall asleep before, maybe years ago. And, you know, if he concentrates hard enough, he can almost put himself back into those nights, the moments where he and Jensen were together, just like this. Before he went and fucked everything up.

And it's funny, how he's never felt as homesick as he does right now, laying beside Jensen's body in Jensen's bed, in Jensen's house in Jensen's world.

 

.

 

One of the last times, maybe even the last time they'd tried to talk about things like adults, it had all gone to shit and quickly turned into an argument. The whole nine, too, a finger pointing match, Jensen shoving Jared until Jared had got Jensen up against the wall with both hands, scaring himself. Scaring them both.

And all it had started with, was, "Man, I think we gotta talk."

Jensen had said the same thing when they'd first bought the house and were trying to pick out paint colors, so, needless to say, Jared wasn't expecting what happened after that.

 

.

 

"Man, I think we gotta talk."

Jared looked up as Jensen came into the office, looking quiet and somber and like he was trying to convince himself to be thick-skinned in that moment.

"I'm in the middle of something," Jared lied, looking away from Jensen, and back down to his email client. He clicked around a few times just trying to look busy, but really all he'd been doing was downloading songs and playing Spider Solitaire.

Ignoring him, which was the one thing that Jared hated most, Jensen came into the office uninvited, right over to his desk with Harley following close at his heels.

Jensen grabbed the other office chair and straddled it, sitting right down beside Jared so they were shoulder to shoulder and Jared could hear him breathing. Harley circled the little area rug a couple of times and quickly settled at their feet, and Jared felt his jaw ticking at the sound of Jensen breathing so noisily.

"What are you doing," He'd asked, leaving his hand on the mouse and his eyes on the screen until he couldn't anymore and looked at Jensen instead, studying his profile with one eye.

Bottom lip relaxed, Jensen raised his eyebrows up and looked pointedly at Jared's computer screen. "Waiting for you to finish."

"Go away," Jared laughed, without sounding amused. His gaze flickered back to the computer screen. Jensen didn't move. "Jensen, seriously."

Jensen shrugged his shoulders, making the three-years ago IKEA chair squeak a little. He rested his cheek against the back of the chair and said, "Nah, seriously, I can wait."

"Alright, what the fuck," Jared snapped, pushing himself away from the desk. The quick movement made Harley freak and jump up, knowing if he didn't move he'd accidentally get run over. Jared kind of felt the same way. He looked at Jensen blankly, and asked, "What do you want?"

Frowning, Jensen sat up straighter, and said, "We need to talk about things, man. We can't put it off forever."

"So talk," Jared snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. Like a child. Jensen rolled his eyes and Harley retreated into the other room, nails clicking on the wooden floor as he sauntered away. "Jensen. Talk if you're gonna."

Jensen licked his lips and started to get up out of the chair. "C'mon outta here, into the kitchen."

As Jensen disappeared down the hallway and around the corner into the kitchen, Jared frowned at his keyboard, clenched his jaw, and finally jerked up off of the chair, following after Jensen not a lot unlike a toddler throwing a tantrum.

When he got into the kitchen, Jensen was leaning against the counter with a beer hanging between his fingers, suspended at his hip. Jared stopped in the doorway, and god does he ever remember it now, how he could hear the air crackle back then, alive with all the things neither of them had said to each other in the last one, two years. And jesus he wishes he'd listened like hell, back then.

"So what's up with you lately?" Jensen asked carefully, twisting his arm and beer up, taking a short swig.

Jared leaned against the inside of the door frame, crossing his arms over his chest. A fire truck siren sounded like it started up right at their back door before it tore away and stopped a few blocks over.

"The broken heart police," Jensen had tried to joke, in the silence it took for Jared to work up the nerve to string two words together. When Jared's honestly accidental response was nothing more than another steely look, Jensen rolled his eyes and pushed away from the counter top with hip, setting his beer down on the granite instead. "And they've clearly come to arrest me. Uh, what the hell is wrong with you? You're acting like a tool, Jared, c'mon."

Shaking his head, Jared said, "Look, I'm out here, aren't I? Now what do you wanna talk about, cause I got things I gotta get back to, and,"

"See, this is what I mean, man," Jensen interrupted, crossing his own arms now too, leaning against the kitchen counter again. "You always gotta be somewhere, always gotta be anywhere that isn't here," Jensen gestured with one folded hand to the floor below them. "I feel like I haven't seen you one day in six months."

Jared shrugged. "I've been busy, look -- "

"Yeah, I noticed." Jensen's sour tone wasn't exactly hard to miss. "Jared, the point is, like... why are you even here now, you know? I feel like all you're thinkin' is bigger and better things, and, I dunno, man. I just maybe feel like those bigger and better things aren't me, aren't here with me."

He trailed off quietly, one hand coming up to rub at his nose. He watched Jared, and Jared watched the floor. Total silence, complete relationship ground zero. Jensen absolutely hated it there.

"Jared," He continued, a whole lot quieter than he'd been talking before. Jared still wouldn't look him in the eye. And again, a little more tension in his voice as he leaned forward and raised his eyebrows. "Jared."

Blinking, Jared looked up from the floor, caught, shrugged his shoulders, and laughed uncomfortably. It was the first smile Jensen had seen grace his face off of a red carpet or photo shoot in he didn't even know how long.

"Katie thinks I should move back to L.A.," Jared told him, simply.

Jensen's stomach had dropped down into his toes right then, and his heart up into his throat. He was a head with a heart in it and a pair of feet with a stomach, but there wasn't anything in between. Couldn't feel anything, from here to there.

"Oh yeah? And what'd you tell her?" Jensen asked.

Jared shrugged and looked off to the side again, and Jensen snorted a laugh that really wasn't any funnier than Jared's laughter had been just a few moments ago, as he nodded his head and started turning around, headed towards the kitchen island, and towards the other door that led out of the kitchen.

"Jensen," Jared said to his back, licking his bottom lip. Jensen completely ignored him and went through the doorway that lead from the kitchen into the living room, arms still crossed over his chest, shoulders pin straight and tense as hell. Jared sighed and pushed away from his doorway as he started after him. "Jensen."

Jensen was already halfway across the living room, but it only took Jared four strides to close in on him.

"Jensen," He tried again, going to hold onto the side of his arm.

Shrugging out of his grasp, Jensen half turned around and said, voice hard as rocks, "Don't touch me, Jared."

Jared tried to go for him again anyways, but Jensen fully turned around then, swung his arms through the air next to his hips, and took one step further out of Jared's reach.

"I'm not fucking kidding you, buddy," He said, eyebrows raised and mouth a stoic frown. The Dean face. "Don't touch me."

Hand dropping back down to his side, Jared studied Jensen's tense expression.

"Jensen," He sighed, starting to follow after him anyways. "I've got that Sutherland move coming -- "

Jensen was headed for the stairs, and took two at a time as he hopped over Sadie, sleeping on the landing.

"You've got the Sutherland movie coming out in three months, yeah, I get it," Jensen called from upstairs.

Jared waited at the foot of the staircase. If he knew anyone it was Jensen, and he knew Jensen wouldn't just let it drop. He'd have to get his last word in, and --

"I can't believe you," Jensen snapped, coming back around the corner, angry face fully equipped as he glared down at Jared. It made Jared feel about two inches tall, but he still found himself scowling back up at him, anyways. "It's like being in a relationship with a three year old. You're supposed to tell me this shit, Jared. Sometimes I'd like to know stuff like this."

Jensen started coming back down the stairs, bouncing over Sadie's step, and meeting Jared a step up from the bottom. Looming a couple inches over Jared, for once in their lives.

"I figured you'd stay up here," Jared had told him then, stone faced, just letting Jensen stare back at him. Didn't even start trying to back peddle or explain himself, maybe saying, no wait, here, I've got it all worked out. I'll go down there for four days a week, up here for three, then every second week I'd have to be down there for six days a week, you know how crazy shooting schedules are, but we could work it out and get you down there for three or four days outta the six, we could get ourselves a little place in Santa Cruz or maybe even somewhere on the coast, and. And.

And I'm making plans for myself, but there's no room for you in them.

"You're such a goddamned asshole," Jensen had said, then swung without even really thinking about it.

He got Jared good, too, right in the jaw, and enough for him to stagger back and grab at the side of his face. Having the nerve to look wounded, like Jensen was the bad guy in the situation. And, Jensen -- Jensen was just about to turn around and go back upstairs, grab his shit and get the hell outta dodge before it blew up, when he felt Jared grab him by the back of the jeans, drag him backwards, and just about send him ass over head as he fell off the bottom step.

"Get -- the fuck," Jensen grunted, trying to shove back as Jared manhandled him back into the hallway. "Jared, let me -- fuck, ow!"

The tone in Jensen's voice made them both freeze where they were, Jared with Jensen's arm twisted up awkwardly beside them, his knee in-between both of Jensen's legs, one arm around his shoulders. He hadn't even really known what he was trying to do, what he was going to accomplish by bullying Jensen back into his grasp, but whatever had been going through his head stopped on a fucking dime when he heard that tone in Jensen's voice.

"Sorry," Jared said immediately, feeling sick and light headed as he let go of Jensen and took a step back, then a step forward to try and touch Jensen's arm, to try and see where he'd done him wrong.

Jensen took a step back, though, face like a fucking stone as he shook his arm out and told Jared, voice low, "This is done."

"Jensen," Jared started to say, stomach beginning to crawl up from his middle.

Jensen shook his head, still twisting his arm around like maybe Jared had made him sprain something. "I'm fucking done, Jared."

 

.

 

And that's the afternoon Jared can't stop thinking about, even while he's laying with Jensen in their bed, in the same brick and mortar house that feels a whole lot different than it did the last time he remembers being in it. That night when he'd come back for the walk of shame, and couldn't even look Jensen in the face because all he could remember was how he'd done them both so wrong. And they'd each known it was over then, but that didn't even matter because Jared was still sick without having his best friend beside him.

Which probably made him more cynical, and more of an asshole in the long run.

Jared turns over in bed, now, eyeing the alarm clock floating over Jensen's shoulder as Jensen curls a little bit further into him, eyelashes flickering against his cheeks as he makes a tremendous sounding snorting noise, and rolls over even more, shoulder bumping into Jared's chest.

Reaching out with one hand, Jared smoothes his palm over the stretch of Jensen's forearm, and feels so fucking responsible for everything that ever went wrong between them, that he could lay down just like this, and sleep forever.

 

.

 

For the next four days, Jensen works all day, every day. He leaves at five thirty in the morning and comes back close to seven at night, and usually Jared has some takeout waiting for him on the kitchen counter by the time the driver's lights flash through the living room windows and both boys sleepily remind Jared that daddy is home.

Every night Jared gets up from the couch or down from where he was poking around in the kitchen cupboards for the coffee maker and starts over to the front hallway, meeting Jensen when he's half out of his coat or has one shoe off or is finally heading into the living room to greet Jacob and Liam.

Jared has a little schedule set up by the time the week is over, Liam isn't even late for school once.

 

.

 

"Maria is gonna get the kids from school," Jensen tells him on Monday morning, coming into the dark bedroom to tuck the bed clothes away from Jared's voice and speak quietly to him through the hazy silence floating through their house. "Come to set around three, I programmed your GPS."

Jared blinks his eyes a few times, that warm embrace of sleep flip flopping through his head. "Why?"

"Metrotown," Jensen says, leaning down to give him a kiss goodbye. "Christmas shopping."

As Jensen leaves the room Jared finds himself nodding his head even as he rolls to the side, already falling back asleep. He shoulda got kids years ago, he's never been as content to lay in bed as he is right now.

Jensen's instructions bounce around his head. Christmas shopping, Metrotown.

Jared yawns.

Right.

 

.

 

Their nanny Maria turns up at the house just after Jared gets out of the shower, which causes an embarrassment for everyone.

"You..." must be Maria, Jared's head tells him to say, as he's standing there, halfway from the laundry room with a pair of clean jeans in one hand, dripping all over the place. Then the part of his brain that actually thinks for him does something right, and he smiles, wrapping the towel more securely around his waist as he says, "You're... early."

Going red from the roundest part of her cheeks right up to her forehead, Maria, pretty girl, Jared thinks, rolls her eyes and laughs, already edging back into the kitchen.

Jared thinks that maybe this has happened before.

 

.

 

Jared turns up on Jensen's set at quarter to four, after taking a wrong turnoff on the highway and almost ending up on a ferry heading up the coast. Then he has to deal with an asshole PA who thinks he's too good for the job, at least until Jared hesitantly pulls his ID out, and then the assistant is all up on arms, not to mention up Jared's ass, as he 'personally escorts' Jared to Jensen's trailer.

"Thanks, man," Jared tells him, shaking the too friendly PA off his arm once he figures out which trailer is Jensen's. "But I got it from here."

He takes the metal stairs two at a time and cracks the door open, the warm interior knocking him in the face like a blanket fresh out of the dryer. It's not as cold as it could be outside, but it is damp and icy, and if there's one thing that Jared hates more than being sweaty, it's being a shivery, bone deep cold mess.

"Hey, I'm sorry," Jared apologizes, as soon as he sees Jensen flopped across the couch, already dressed in his jacket as he watches the local news. Jensen looks up, over at him, and raises his eyebrows. "Took a wrong exit, almost got myself shipped to... never mind. You ready?"

Jensen smirks a little, and motions with one hand to his fully dressed form: sneakers, jeans, jacket, beanie, gloves.

"Of course you are," Jared finishes off, a little lamely. "Because I'm forty minutes late."

Making a funny face, Jensen holds one arm out and wiggles his fingers in Jared's direction. "C'mere a minute."

"What," Jared walks over and stops just short of Jensen's fingers. And, you know, it's weird. Suddenly he's so aware of everything he ever did to fuck with Jensen, to let him down or make him even think for a second that Jared really never was all that nice of a guy after all. And, standing there, thinking this, he almost can't even look Jensen in the eye.

Jensen makes another face, patented Ackles expression, and reaches up for the hem of Jared's shirt. "What is wrong with you," He finally says, getting Jared's button down under his jacket with two fingers. He tugs and says, "Come down here. C'mon."

"Uh," Jared bends because Jensen won't stop tugging, and moves so he's kneeling on one leg beside Jensen's hip, arm outstretched and balanced against the back of the sofa at Jensen's head.

Jensen relaxes back into the couch, head sinking into the cushions as he studies Jared's expression, the obvious tense line of his torso.

"What's wrong with you?" Jensen asks again, quietly now, moving one hand up to palm Jared's stomach, slide around to his hip. He only holds on, and Jared just stares down at him.

He licks his lips, goes to open his mouth and say something, but inevitably only ends up shaking his head, closing his eyes, opening them again, and shifting around to hang over Jensen more, leaning until he can rest his head on the couch cushion beside Jensen's, his hair tickling Jared's mouth.

"Nothing's wrong," Jared says quietly, saying 'wrowng' against Jensen's ear. Jensen wiggles a bit and Jared can feel a hand coasting down the line of his back, up over his shoulder blade and then back down again. Jared closes his eyes but can't help but breathe shallowly, licks his lips, opens his eyes, and tries to focus in on the curve of Jensen's ear lobe. He's too close and his vision is too blurry, though. "I'm sorry for bein' late, is all," He finally says.

Jensen tilts his head to the side so he and Jared can look each other in the face, eyes wide open, lips pursed, and god does Jared ever love that face even still, and if didn't realize it before then he's so sure he knows it by now.

"Yet here I still am," Jensen drawls at him, quietly, looking sleepy, looking pliable. Nothing at all like the tense, angry man he'd left behind. "Shows you something, huh."

Jared shakes his head and brings a hand up to rest on the sofa beside Jensen's cheek.

"Shows me nothin'," Jared tells him, quiet enough. "You're still the same guy I always knew, huh."

Jensen laughs and leans forward a bit, just so he can wrap his arm around Jared's shoulder and look like a bit of a lovesick fool, is all.

"Yeah," Jensen tells him, grinning stupidly. "Too bad, huh."

 

.

 

They park in the Metrotown parkade, which Jensen immediately almost slips and falls in when he jumps down outta the passenger seat.

"Just about lost your horse, cowboy," Jared laughs at him, hitting the auto-lock on his key chain as he comes around the front of the vehicle.

Jensen scoffs and makes a face at him cause it seems like that's what this Jensen does a lot, and waits for Jared to catch up to him before they start across the sprawling parking lot, packed with cars, rumbling with the effort of the Skytrain speeding overhead. The night is a dark, inky black, but Jared can't see one damn star because of all the lights flooding out from the shopping center.

"Alright, remember to get somethin' for your mama," Jensen tells him, like he thinks Jared will actually remember.

Nodding regardless, he follows Jensen through the automatic doors at the front, packed full of people, and Jared is starting to wonder how this is gonna go. Do they do this often, shopping with no security or anything? Do they do it so often that the kind people of Vancouver just don't give a shit anymore?

Jared shuffles across the two feet of carpet in front of the doors to dry his shoes off, wanting nothing to do with anything that has his ass meeting granite floor at approximately two hundred and seventy pounds per hour.

"Okay, game plan," Jensen tells him, as he's unzipping his jacket and already heading in a very planned direction. If Jared was turned loose in here by himself he could very easily disappear and never be found again. "We need clothes, toys, books, and we gotta go to The Armani Exchange, you need something to wear and I ripped those pants I was gonna wear to that party. We can stop at the food court after, but I still gotta get something for my folks, so..." He trails off to think for a second, still walking at a clip fast enough that Jared has to double time his strides to keep up with. "Maybe I can stop downtown tomorrow 'an just get something from Holt Renfrew. Yeah."

Nodding, and knowing he couldn't repeat their current itinerary if he damn well tried, Jared follows Jensen around a corner, and into their first stop, which is, apparently, Gap Kids.

 

.

 

Almost two hours later they're in the food court, sprawled across one of the booth seats, with a tray of New York Fries between them. Jared hasn't had a workout like this since he doesn't damn well know when, and Jensen looks like he's on his way to winded, too.

"What else?" Jared dares to ask, after finishing off the last half of his fountain drink.

Jensen's picking something out of his front tooth as he sits amongst their bags and bags of purchases, and says, "Toys 'R Us. That's all."

"I can do toys," Jared says confidently, already starting to stand up.

Laughing, Jensen nods and tries to round up his portion of their bags, which Jared has continually had to hold as Jensen pays for their purchases at every stop, this big production of handing all their shit back and forth and digging cards out of wallets and trying to find aforementioned wallets in the first place.

Jared, like pretty much everything else, enjoys shopping with Jensen.

Big surprise there.

 

.

 

Jared is laughing, that huge, obnoxious laugh he does so well that used to make Jensen look at him with this tiny smirk on his face, this warm expression that would say, man. You are something else, y'know, and really damn well mean it.

But, as it stands, Jared is laughing anyways. Loudly. Also, Jared feels about two sheets to the wind in love.

"Can I take it off now?" Jensen annoyed laughs, adjusting the child sized fireman's hat sitting atop his head, reaching his fingers down to pull at the tight band under his chin. It really pronounces his double chin, and Jared thinks that, then flies into another all-encompassing round of laughter. Jensen laughs, too, but pulls it off of his head regardless. "You're such an idiot."

Jared keeps laughing but crosses the aisle, bumping into Jensen's side as he wraps his arm around Jensen's shoulders. He rests his forehead against the curve of Jensen's skull as he keeps snickering, following Jensen out of that aisle and into another one.

 

.

 

They get home and the kids are asleep, because even though they didn't realize it, it's already quarter to midnight. Jensen writes a check for Maria and walks her down to where she's parked on the street, waves her off, and Jared knows cause he watches from the front hall, toes curling into the carpet in front of the door.

"Hey," Jared says, first thing when Jensen comes back through the door, bare arms chilled because he went out without a jacket. Jensen smiles up at Jared as he clicks the heavy door closed behind him, and Jared can't help it, couldn't even if he damn well even pretended to try. He closes the gap between them, and wraps his arms around Jensen's shoulders, quietly loves that he can do that still, he never did tell anybody, but he loved it when he could do it back then, too. Totally encompassing is what it always felt like to him, anyway.

Jensen bites at Jared's chest as his face is pressed into the thin cotton t-shirt fabric there, laughing as he starts to wiggle.

"Lemme lock the door," He says, trying to make his way backwards.

Jared laughs and shakes his head, still clumsily following after him, their knees knocking together as Jensen manages to wrangle one of his arms out of Jared's grasp. He grunts and reaches for the door, laughing as he manages to throw Jared's weight off enough to have them both stagger forward. Enough that Jensen has to break their fall with one hand against the door, as the other goes down to twist the two locks.

"I love you, man," Jared punch-drunk whispers into the hair at the back of his head, as Jensen is doing the second lock up. "You know that, right?"

After the lock is spun, Jensen's body relaxes, and they both slide forward to lean against the door, Jensen's forehead hitting the wood before the rest of his body as he turns his head and smiles at Jared over his shoulder. Jared keeps his arms around Jensen's middle the whole time, and watches carefully as Jensen nods and starts turning around, one arm coming up to go around Jared's shoulders.

"Sometimes," Jensen teases him, leaning forward for a kiss, getting it done good and proper. He pulls back and makes a face. "But only sometimes, y'know."

Jared laughs, a quieter version of what he'd done at the toy store, and starts walking them backwards, loving that Jensen follows him without thinking twice.

 

.

 

Jared dreams that night without expecting to, and it's all so vivid and real that he remembers everything when he wakes up.

A dream when you're already dreaming, he thinks to himself, that first brutally honest moment upon waking, when his heart rate is still going crazy and he isn't sure what's real and what's real-real and what is really fake.

Just a dream, Jared tries to tell himself, staring up at the ceiling.

It's 6:18, and Jensen is still sleeping soundly beside him.

 

.

 

"You're gonna realize," Jensen tells him in this dream, except he's dressed down to the toes as Dean, with the Dean hair and sneer and beaten jacket, and they're sitting in a terminal at LAX. Dean frowns and him and asks, "Where the hell do you think you are, man? Think you died and went to heaven or something?"

Jared in his dream, Jared doesn't say anything. He only sits there like a fool, staring at Dean. Dean frowns at him some more and two jet planes take off outside. They're so loud and so close and so real sounding that Jared feels the heavy metal airport chair vibrating under his hands.

"It's fucked up," Dean continues, eyebrows jerking up into his forehead. "How bad he wanted it."

In a snap-shake of a second Jared's voice comes back to him, just as the jet engines are disorienting loud overhead and Dean has turned away to watch a girl wearing a short skirt walk down the aisle next to them.

"Wanted what?" Jared shouts, trying to reach over to shake at Dean's arm, ask him, give me a bone here, man, you gotta give me some kind of clue, but Dean ignores him, and Jared can't even reach out because his hands feel sticky glued to this seat, vibrating from the loud noises overhead. "Jensen? What did he want? This? Tell me what he wanted."

Dean's face snaps back to look at him, and Jared jumps.

"What do you think, man? He wanted you, and that's all he ever wanted," Dean tells him, and Jared blinks, then all of a sudden the character fades away and its only Jensen sitting there, facing away from Jared in his thin gray t-shirt. Jared moves and jumps up out of his chair, running around the side to get a good look at Jensen's face, to ask what the hell Dean meant, to ask, what, what --

What do I do?

Jared feels like he runs around that chair for hours, and maybe even days, but he never gets the chance to see Jensen's face. It's just a blur, moving away from every step that Jared tries to take forward.

And that's when he wakes up, breathing hard. Both hands sweaty and tense.

 

.

 

That morning Jared trips over Jacob on his way down the stairs, and almost knocks himself out on the banister.

"Jacob!" Jensen yells from upstairs, as Jared swings against the railing after just barely managing to catch himself. Jared catches his breath and looks over at his son just as Jensen comes out into the upstairs foyer, wearing a pair of dress pants but no shirt. He has a pair of kid sized pants in his hand: brown corduroys with a rip in the bottom cuff. "Why aren't you wearing pants?"

He takes in Jared half laying against the stairs, breathing hard as his heart is pounding, Jacob sitting happily on the step above him with a stuffed dinosaur in his lap.

"Sorry, daddy," He says, getting to his feet and patting Jared on the head a couple of times. He starts back up the stairs one by one as Jared tries to sit up and Liam wanders out of the boys bedroom fully dressed.

Jensen picks up Jacob when he gets close enough but hovers for a few seconds anyways, watching Jared laying there on the stairs.

"You okay?" He finally asks, but by the time Jared turns around to look, Jensen and both of the kids are gone.

 

.

 

Jensen calls Katie after Liam's been dropped off at school and Jacob is happily sitting in front of the living room TV, eating his animal cookies and talking to a toy fish. Jared's pretty sure it's supposed to be some kind of regular trout, but really it looks more like a piranha. And, despite the fact that it's clearly a dog toy, squeaky middle and all, Jacob still seems attached to it regardless.

While Jensen is on the phone in the office, Jared hovers, shuffling through papers and clicking around his emails, which are mostly forwards from Jensen's mama and a bunch of online banking receipts that his accountant sends him.

"So he's gonna there next week for what, three days? And then in January..." Jensen trails off and scribbles something down on a legal note pad, then start shuffling around for something in one of his many stacks of assorted documents. Jared watches quietly from over his shoulder, until Jensen spins around in his office chair without warning, and catches Jared mid-spy. Jensen either doesn't care or didn't notice, instead reaching his arm out to Jared and wiggling his fingers. "Hand me that paper up there," He says, pointing up onto the shelf over Jared's desk.

Jared stands and retrieves the appropriate piece of paper, then sits back down in his wobbly chair and hands it over to Jensen. Jensen smiles a little at him, this soft look that makes Jared's belly drop down to his toes, before it's back to business on the phone, talking about renewing Jacob's passport photos and some signatures that are needed for his American citizenship.

He slowly spins around in his chair, watching the ceiling, until Jensen is finally done with the call and hangs up with a sigh.

"Man, I hate L.A.," Jensen tells him, rolling his chair around to face Jared. Their knees bump and Jared raises his head to look properly. "You've gotta be down there three days next week to do some read-throughs," He says, kicking a little at Jared's ankle with his socked foot before he raises his leg to push on the side of Jared's chair, making him spin to the side. "Mr. Hollywood."

Jared laughs a little and turns back around to face Jensen, who's still watching him carefully, that same expression on his face. Jared's pretty sure he used to look at his dogs that way when they did something stupid but funny, like the time Harley got his head stuck in his mama's cat door.

"What?" Jared asks, as Jensen raises his leg back up so he can rest his heel beside Jared's thigh. Jensen's leg is long and lean, and goddamn if Jared doesn't want to lick from the curve of his ankle all the way up to the joint of his hip.

And here all along, Jared never thought of himself as a leg dude.

"Nothin'," Jensen lies, smiling as he drops his leg down so he can get up. He bends down over Jared and kisses him as he says, "I just think you're pretty alright sometimes, s'all."

Then he's walking out of the office and towards the kitchen, yelling at Jacob to ask him what he wants for lunch.

 

.

 

A week to that day, Jared is landing at LAX with a pit in his stomach and a moderately priced carry-on in his hand.

There are nine paparazzo waiting for him outside, and they're the first thing he sees after stopping to grab a coffee and magazine for the ride back to Studio City.

"Hey, c'mon guys, cut it out," He tries to tell them, tugging the brim of his cap lower, trying to use the magazine to shield the bright flashes as he walks down the sidewalk and towards his waiting car.

They're all yelling his name, shouting to ask him where Jensen is, what his kids have been up to. Jared suddenly feels absolutely spit sick at just the thought of dragging Liam and Jacob through this.

Jared finds his car and climbs into the back seat, letting the door slam hard as he settles into the warm leather.

As the driver pulls away from the curb, Jared sits there with his head in both hands, feeling so damned well twisted up inside that he's pretty sure not even his mama could straighten him out right.

 

.

 

The three days pass by pretty uneventfully. They do a read through, him and Scarlett Johansson and her ridiculous boobs. He runs into Marc Jacobs by accident at a Starbucks and almost doesn't recognize him, and then Katie calls him to ask if he can burn forty minutes on an interview with Gotham Magazine, because it's going to be hard to schedule a sit down session with Christmas and the new movie coming up.

Jared does the interview, and doesn't mind it too much, really. He finds out that he can speak a lot easier about Jensen and their kids and their life up in Vancouver than he can about the new movie or the last movie or whatever movie he wants to do next year.

He stays at the Hilton that night, in the penthouse with full catering and a sweet jacuzzi tub. Katie leaves him a message to let him know she set up a viewing appointment to check out the condo he and Jensen have apparently agreed to lease in January, and then gives him the address of the school Liam is going to go to, because one of the head administrators wants to meet with him.

In between this that and the other, Jared doesn't really even get a chance to breathe. And then he's back on an overnight flight, heading back up home, and he can finally relax and take a fucking second to let it all sink in.

 

.

 

The driver drops him off at home at quarter to midnight on December 14th. Somewhere in Jared's head he knows that, logically, it's a week until Christmas, but that thought doesn't actually occur to him until he cracks the front door open, and catches Jensen sitting on the floor in the living room, wrapping presents.

"That's pretty gay," He says, standing there in the doorway, looking at Jensen sitting amongst a veritable crack den of ribbons and tape and glitter and mini Christmas decorations to attach to said ribbons and tape and sparkles.

Jensen grins up at him, and presses a long strip of tape along the underside of a square present. "Yeah well, I'm your momma's favorite person in the world on Christmas morning when she sees how pretty her things are." He pauses, and flips the box back over, sitting back a bit as he asks, "How was your trip?"

"Tedious." He drops his bag at the entry way and starts unzipping his layers, dropping them on the couch and kicking off his boots before he starts treading across the carpet in his socks, coming to stand at Jensen's thigh. Jensen's still looking up at him. "Some administrator at Liam's school tried to flirt with me."

Laughing, Jensen shakes his head, and reaches up to grab the hem of Jared's shirt. He pulls 'til Jared gets the hint and crouches down.

"Uh oh," Jensen laughs, leaning up to kiss Jared. Jared sinks his knees into the carpet, and tries not to tumble them both over. "Trouble."

Jensen kisses him again, and then ducks his head like he's gonna go back to his presents, but c'mon, Jared's been gone for days. He slides his hand to the back of Jensen's head, kissing him again, deep enough to make it real in any faulty reality.

"No," Jared says, kissing him again, belly warming when Jensen makes a little noise, and leans on one arm back against the carpet. "She wasn't my type."

Pulling away from him a bit, just enough to look up into Jared's face, Jensen smiles.

"Oh yeah?" He asks, and Jared can see the Christmas tree all lit up out of the corner of his eye, and the cold damp of the outside making the windows all foggy and condensed on the inside. "What's your type, then?"

Jared smiles and slides his hand around the curve of Jensen's warm shoulder, down his back.

"Green eyes, great ass, married," He says, making Jensen laugh again.

Groaning when Jared starts kissing like he means it again, and he does, really does this time, Jensen pulls back, looking all puffy mouthed and droopy eyed.

"Really gotta finish wrapping these," He tells Jared, rough voice as he thumbs at the nape of Jared's neck. "Don't want them to see it all here in the morning."

Jared smiles and shakes his head a little bit, leaning in to kiss Jensen's mouth just right there.

 

.

 

Jensen finishes wrapping the presents while Jared starts a couple beers on the couch above him, laying there in a coma from the flight and the wait and all the shit he had to deal with in California, now sitting in the near dark, watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer on YTV.

"They're starting to remember us leaving," Jensen says, during a commercial break when Jared is almost asleep.

Trying to keep his eyes open, Jared's gaze flickers over to look at Jensen sitting below all of the Christmas lights, among half wrapped presents and rolls of brightly colored paper. "What d'you mean?"

"Like, remember when they were really little, and one of us could leave for two weeks, and they never really knew the difference?" Jensen asks, ripping a piece of scotch tape off of the roll with his teeth. Jared doesn't really know, but he nods his head anyways. "Yeah, well, all I heard the last three days was, when's daddy coming home? Will daddy be home by dinner? You think daddy will be here to watch TV tonight? If I go to bed early, do you think daddy will be here in the morning?"

Heart sinking down into his belly, Jared frowns, and thumbs at the edge of his beer label. "Both of them said that?"

"Yeah, well I mean, Jacob asks more, but you can tell Liam wants to know just as bad," Jensen replies, rolling himself up onto both knees to reach across and grab one of the three bags they got at Toys 'R Us a couple of weeks ago. "I explained it to them, but they don't get why you can't come back at night."

Jared frowns some more and blinks slowly, staring at his feet propped up on the arm rest of the couch. "I wish I could've."

"I know, man, it sucks," Jensen agrees easily, pulling a handheld Nintendo whatever the fuck out of the first bag. It had been number one on Liam's list. "We're just gonna have to be real careful about what we're picking the next couple years, at least 'til they get old enough to understand that just cause we're leaving every now and then don't mean we don't love 'em as much as we do when we're here."

Starting to sit up now, Jared feels like he might hurl or worse as he asks, "They think I don't love 'em as much, just 'cause I'm not here?"

"They're kids, Jared," Jensen says, peeling the price tag off of the gift he's wrapping. "Their logic is flawed."

Jared frowns and rests his chin on his hand, beer hung low in the other. He watches Jensen work, both of them quiet for a few moments.

"Maybe I'll take a couple years off, then," Jared concedes, laying back down, going back to his Christmas special.

Jensen doesn't say anything, but Jared can damn well feel the stare he levels him with from half way across the room.

 

.

 

They have to go to Liam's school for a Christmas concert two nights later, which Jared feels kind of awkward about right from the start. As a general rule he doesn't really like kids, doesn't really know how to talk to them unless they're his little sister, or, uh. His sons.

Which, you know, is why he doesn't really know what to say when he's walking down Liam's elementary school hallway with Jensen beside him, and some little girl runs up and stops short in front of him. When she puts her hands on her hips and levels him with this girl stare, Jared's blood runs cold. He didn't realize that they learned it so early.

"Uh," He says, coming to a full stop as Jensen slows down beside him, Jacob thrown half over his shoulder, totally asleep. He looks down at the little girl staring back up at him with her soul sucking deep brown eyes, and raises his eyebrows. "Hi."

She frowns at him, and then says a short, "Hi." Jared looks over at Jensen for help, but after a quickly offered 'you're on your own, man' expression thrown in Jared's general direction, Jensen pretends that he's really interested in the booth a few paces down, where some woman is selling wreathes and evergreen table center pieces.

"Well, I gotta, uh..." Jared starts, trying to get past the girl.

But she only jabs him in the coat with her teeny tiny finger and then squawks, "Did you know that I used to think Trey Lipton was cool?" She snaps, and before Jared can even figure out what the hell is going on, he hears Jensen cover a snort beside him. By the time he turns his head to look at him, Jensen has managed to recover, with a hand over his mouth as he looks down at the girl with raised eyebrows, clearly in the midst of pretending that wasn't laughter.

"Excuse me?" Jared asks her, as he raises his eyebrows, too.

She cocks her eyebrow and hip and then juts another finger in his face. "She was too good for you, you know," She bitches.

"Uh," Jared starts to backtrack and explain that he's sorry that he ever made New York Minute, too, but Eugene Levy was pretty cool, and the money had been, uh, enough to buy him lunch, but then a woman walks up to the little girl with a horrified look on her face and a jeweled poinsettia pinned to the chest of her sweater.

She clamps a hand down over who Jared suspects is her daughter's mouth, and apologizes, "Sorry, she's kind of... opinionated. Olivia."

"It's okay," Jensen says from next to him, sounding generally entertained by the entire situation. "He's used to it."

Her mom makes their apologizes and heads off with one of her hands holding onto the back of her daughter's dress, bent low at the hip as she stage-whispers at her the whole way back to another one of the little booths.

"That was half awesome," Jensen continues, as they resume walking, trying to navigate the entrance to the theatre-gymnasium.

Jared shakes his head and tries to pretend it never happened as he keeps a hand on Jensen's back and they shuffle through the crowd, tugging at his coat like a child in an effort not to lose him. Jared doesn't want to be left alone and therefore defenseless among all these people.

"Little girls are scary," Jared finally concedes, eyeing another little girl standing off to the side, covered in gold glitter and snowflakes as she tears her mother a new one about the length of her skirt. Jared widens his eyes, and decides to keep his head down the rest of the way to their seats.

 

.

 

Liam plays a reindeer in the little play about Santa, and then is one of the three kids to decorate Frosty with his coal, carrot, and scarf.

Halfway through the choir singing 'The Twelve Days of Christmas,' Jensen elbows Jared in the side, jostling a completely asleep Jacob in his arms.

Jared leans over with his eyebrows raised, one eye still trained on the stage. He's getting the hang of this multitasking thing.

"Promise me we'll never do that," Jensen whispers at him, nodding to another gay couple sitting a couple rows in front of them, one with a video camera trained on the stage, another snapping from a digital camera every five and a half seconds.

Grinning, Jared turns to look Jensen proper in the face and says with feeling, "I promise."

 

.

 

"Guess what today is," Liam tells him on a Thursday morning, as he's wandering into the kitchen with tooth paste all over his mouth.

Jared looks up from where he's eating his cereal at the table, and raises his eyebrows. "What?"

"Four sleeps 'til Christmas," Liam explains, coming over to crawl up onto the chair right beside Jared. Jared reaches out and steadies him when he almost climbs right off the side. "And the last day of school."

Grinning, Jared reaches forward and pulls Liam's breakfast over from where Jensen sat it on the other side of the table all of twenty minutes ago.

"Pretty awesome, huh," He pushes the plate full of cold toast and a half an apple towards Liam, and goes back to his cereal. "Might snow today, too, that'd be pretty cool."

Liam looks completely staggered as he looks at Jared with an open mouth and then reaches for a slice of apple.

"Today is my best day ever," He says to nobody in particular, biting into the apple slice with a passion.

 

.

 

"My sister called me earlier," Jensen says, as he's half bent into the fireplace, dinking around in the fire with his poking stick.

Jared is sprawled over the couch, half asleep, which is usual these days, with the remote in one hand and warm socks on his feet.

"Oh yeah?" He asks, flipping from a late repeat of Oprah to the local news to the Daily Show, back to Oprah and then finally to another Christmas special, because he's not completely sick of this seasons greetings garbage yet. His personal favorite, A Christmas Story, is on, which he also can't wait to watch the 24 hour marathon of on TBS.

Jensen stands up and stares at the fire for a second more, before laying the stick back down and turning around to face the couch. He looks all rumpled and completely ready to go to bed, which makes Jared's head swim.

"Yeah, she said momma won't leave her and the kids alone cause they're the only ones she has to bother this year," Jensen laughs, walking over to the couch. He gets halfway there and then remembers he left his beer on the mantel, turns around to go back and get it. "She's kind of a bitch though."

Jared laughs and stretches one arm up over his head as Jensen comes back and crawls up onto the other side of the couch, which Jared currently has his feet on. He manages to settle himself down, a real Padalecki navigation expert.

"Your mom or your sister?" Jared asks, dodging the fist Jensen slings at his thigh.

Jensen's still laughing as he manages to pinch Jared's foot and say, "My sister. Asshole."

"Just kidding," Jared snickers, trying to shake Jensen's hand off. "I like your momma, you know that."

Taking a swig of his beer, Jensen rolls his eyes and leans over to set his beer on the end table, saying, "Now your momma, on the other hand..."

"Watch it, asshole," Jared laughs, poking his toes into Jensen's side, which immediately makes Jensen wheeze all kinds of funny noises as he bends his spine to try and get out of it, head hitting the back of the couch.

Jared stops when Jensen almost falls off the couch, and even then it's only because Jensen gets a good jab into the muscle on his thigh.

"Ow," Jared concedes, bending his leg up to rub at the spot Jensen wronged. "That hurt."

Jensen laughs, breathless from the short fight, as he holds onto his side and grins over at Jared. "Tough shit."

"Oh yeah," Jared taunts, getting his foot back in Jensen's face, sticking it right in his nose and almost taking his eye out with his big toe.

Now Jensen is really laughing, this desperate snickering as he tries to push Jared's foot away and inflict pain on him at the same time. It's a hard dance to do, but Jared can see that Jensen's really mastered it over the years.

"You're such an asshole," Jensen finally says, shoving Jared's foot away by the ankle. Jared grins, chin against his chest, as he lays his leg right across Jensen's lap, heel of his foot rested on the arm chair at the opposite side of the couch.

Jared wiggles his foot around again as Jensen moves for his beer. "Character flaw," He says, watching Jensen's shoulders bounce as he snorts.

He's still grinning when Jensen turns back to watch the flat screen over the crackling fire, beer bottle pressed against his lips.

And again, Jared is so in love that he feels like he's stuck in quicksand.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That night he manages to fall asleep after coasting a hand up and down Jensen’s back for going on forty minutes.
> 
> ”Finally,” Jensen tells him in his dream. Except it’s not Jensen, really. Jared recognizes the whole outfit get-up from a romantic comedy that Jensen did a couple of years after the series ended in ’11. He’s wearing a black suit, crisp white button down under that, a thin tie knotted around his neck that reminds Jared of the one he wore the day they got married.
> 
> In this dream Jensen looks like he’s in love, eyes wide, his hair styled unkempt.

The rest of the week goes by in a blur of Christmas decorations, the two boys practically vibrating out of their skin in excitement. Jared spends most of his free time eating way too many of the sugar cookies his mama sent up in a holiday care package for the four of them.

”Oh, god,” He groans, spread out all over the kitchen table, still with the massive sized tin of cookies within his reach.

Jensen is across the room, wearing another button down shirt with both sleeves rolled up, cause they’d had his folks on webcam earlier, and apparently, he is still one of those guys. Jared doesn’t even know what he’s working on over there, really, all he does know is that he hasn’t been paying attention to much since that UPS guy dropped off the huge cardboard shipping box from his mama going on two hours ago now.

From what Jared can see, Jensen seems to be doing a lot with tupperwears and pulling junk out of the freezer. Even though his cookie haze, he can appreciate it for its gay factor alone.

And, across from him at the table, Jacob sits with a glass of milk in one hand and a sugar cookie in the other, red sprinkles stuck all around his mouth.

”Careful, Jake,” Jensen warns, from his position behind the kitchen island. Jared groans again, and rolls his sticky forehead against the table top. “Your cookie is still in daddy’s striking distance.”

Jacob pauses and looks wearily over at Jared as he takes a careful bite of his star-shaped cookie, holding the glass of milk close to his chest, and his cookie near his mouth. Like it’s something that Jared has done before. Jensen immediately starts laughing across the room, re-rolling his shirt sleeves up to his elbows.

”If you’re gonna puke, don’t do it in front of me, dude,” Jensen tells him, turning his back to resume plundering the depths of their freezer.

Jared reaches for his half-empty glass of water and shakes his head, pretending that he didn’t notice how Jacob jerked his cookie back and took a gigantic sized bite when he saw Jared’s hand starting to reach for something.

Damn, god bless his mama for being such a good cook.

 

.

 

Jared heads out to pick Liam up from a friend’s house at four. A friend, who Jensen suspects is also quite possibly a legit kindergarten girlfriend.

”Thanks for havin’ him,” Jared tells the girl’s mother as they both stand on the front stoop, Liam’s friend hiding behind her mother’s leg as Liam stands on the step one below Jared. Jared smiles, and jingles his car keys. “Hope he wasn’t too much trouble.”

She starts going off immediately, crowing about how fantastic of a little boy Liam is and this and that, her eyes shooting into big wide star-shaped gold money symbols right in front of Jared’s nose.

Needless to say, he gets them both outta there as quick as he can.

”Me and you are gonna go find daddy a Christmas present,” Jared tells him, halfway into buckling him into the backseat.

Liam raises his eyebrows and looks confident as he says, "Okay."

Jared hides a smile into the collar of his jacket as he rounds the SUV. It’s funny, two of the greatest people he’s ever come to know, and they’re not even four feet tall.

 

.

 

The two of them walk through the front door after a moderately successful shopping excursion spent downtown to find Jacob bouncing up and down the staircase on his butt. Jared also assumes Jensen is still diligently working away in the kitchen.

”Shh,” Jared tells the two boys, executing the universal ‘be quiet’ sign with one finger pressed against his lips.

They both look at him stoically. Jacob even stops with the sliding long enough for Jared to make it past him with the intent to hide the present in the rarely opened hall closet.

”It’s a secret present for daddy,” Jared hears Liam stage-whispering, as he plateaus at the top of the stairs. With a smirk on his face he hurries down the hallway and hides the plastic shopping bag as inconspicuously as possible right behind a box full of still unopened Halloween decorations.

 

.

 

Jensen smirks to nobody in particular at the sound of Jared thundering down the hallway upstairs, and even smiles a little bit as he turns the tap on.

 

.

 

Maria shows up at the front door just after the kids finish dinner, which Jared is thankfully fully clothed for this time.

”I told you this morning,” Jensen had frowned at him, when Jared had started making noise about not knowing they were going anywhere tonight. “Daniel’s production company is having their wrap party tonight.” He had also been trying to wiggle his way into a pair of grey slacks as he said it, which had made it really hard for Jared to concentrate. Actually, that might have been what happened before. “And, I told him we’d be there.”

Huh. Maybe Jared did actually remember that, now that he was standing in the hallway in front of Maria, replaying the entire situation in his memory. At least, he sort of remembered it, in between the hail storm the boys got so excited about this morning, breakfast, Jacob almost knocking the tree over, lunch, his mama’s sugar cookies, and almost hitting that pedestrian when he’d turned around to check on Liam in the car.

”Big Christmas party?” Maria asks him, breaking Jared out of his trailing thought process as she smiles up at him and closes the door behind her.

Jared smiles back out of reflex, and dodges Liam as he comes thundering around the corner and about takes both of Maria’s legs out.

”I guess so,” Jared smiles, watching Liam grin and hug at Maria’s waist.

 

.

 

They arrive fashionably late on not-purpose, handing the SUV over to the valet before they head up to the front hotel entrance, deciding to just follow behind some other guy who looks like he knows where he’s going.

Jared slings an arm around Jensen’s shoulders without thinking too much about it, and smiles at the black tied doorman as they walk through.

 

.

 

So there’s the truth, and then there’s the truth.

The truth is, Jensen’s ass looks fucking fantastic in these pants. Which Jared has had a high interest in ever since they were only a mere guest appearance back at the house. Now, though, how they’re even more interesting, especially since that second it took Jensen to bend down and pick up some lady’s napkin.

Always the gentleman, Jared thinks to himself as he shifts in his chair. He’s been sitting amongst a floor of white topped tables for the last fifteen minutes, each of them weighed down with gold and silver sparkles, all kinds of fancy Christmas baubles knocking around.

Jared blinks and taps his fingers along the table top, then goes for his wine.

The wine being awesome. Now, that’s the truth, he thinks, fondly, before waiting another forty five seconds until he bounces up from the table with a half hard dick in his dress pants as he tries to make his way across the room in a gentlemanly fashion. Jensen is in the middle of charming a crowd of thirty-somethings with only his smile and a few well aimed and quick witted remarks.

Besides the ass, that’s actually how Jared remembers being won over the first time, too.

 

.

 

Inevitably they end up in one of the bathrooms off of the main lobby, which Jared feels was a very good idea in the grand plan of things. It’s a high-end hotel, which means that all of the bathrooms are suited for one person and one person only, which, more importantly, means that they get a real door with a real lock on one side.

Which also happens to mean that Jared doesn’t feel all that bad when he makes a noise that might have definitely been audible under other circumstances.

”It’s the pants, isn’t it,” Jensen breathes, sat up on top of the counter, one leg hooked around Jared’s bare waist, the other hand up in the air at the back of Jared’s head.

Grinning wide, Jared huffs his breath out in a short little exhale that does nothing except make him feel even more light headed as he gets one hand down into the zipper of Jensen’s slacks. The other immediately starts going up the bottom hem of his shirt, tugging it out of his waistband as Jensen’s hands trail down to Jared’s dick.

”The pants are good,” Jared murmurs against Jensen’s mouth, before pulling away to smile again and lean forward, down, suck from Jensen’s bottom lip back over to the lobe of his ear.

Jensen makes all kinds of noises as Jared jerks him off quick and dirty, bending down to finish him off with his mouth at the last minute, tongue hot and wet and all of the kinds of things that Jensen really likes in a blowjob.

”Oh god, Jesus Jared,” Jensen gasps at the last second, before he throws his head back and almost cracks it off of the mirror.

One hand still loose around Jensen’s cock, Jared sticks the other down his own loosened pants and jerks himself off in three, two, one, as he crumples forward to lick the starting trails of Jensen’s come off of his belly, the line going from his hip straight down to his dick.

Jared leaves the bathroom with a swollen lip and a stain on his best pants, but, mostly, Jensen holding his hand.

 

.

 

He phones his mama on Christmas Eve, which is ten miles past surreal, to be sitting in his living room up in Vancouver while both his folks talk to his two little boys.

As in, children.

”Say hi to grandma,” Jensen tells them both, while dragging Jacob back into the room and unceremoniously dropping him in Jared’s lap.

Jared laughs and grabs Jacob around the waist before he can slither away, so damn happy he could split right in two. Lettin’ his mama see something he's really proud of, it's a good feeling, and even more than that when he can say with whole truth that the two of them are all he and Jensen's hand.

"Say hi," Jared says, bouncing his knee when Jacob tries to drop his weight and slide off of it again.

Liam leans against the couch cushions and sighs, looking over at Jensen with wide eyes, a real puppy dog.

"Hi, gramma," He finally concedes, leaning away from the couch and onto the coffee table, where they have Jared's mama on speaker phone.

Smiling, Jared leans back against the couch cushions as Liam finally gives up and relaxes against him instead, little legs just barely reaching the end of Jared's knee caps, his socks hanging off of his toes and stained on the bottoms.

"Say thank you to grandma for the cookies," Jensen tells them, getting up when he hears a heavy sounding truck idling outside. He wanders over to the window because Jensen is a nosy person by his very nature, a trait that he got from his mama.

Liam leans his chin against the palm of his hand and looks at the phone. "Thank you for the cookies," He parrots, and then, thoughtfully, "Daddy ate so many he almost threw up everywhere."

That makes Jared’s mama laugh, hard and happy as she sits in her chair where Jared imagines her to be on the other end of the continent, maybe finally content that Jared had managed to find something like this.

 

.

 

The boys don't want to go to bed, which Jared can understand, sure, remembers being young enough to want to sleep in the living room, or at least sneak down the staircase in the middle of the night if only to get a glimpse of Santa underneath the tree.

"You know what?" Jensen is trying to bargain with Jacob as he tucks him into his bunk. "The faster you go to sleep, the faster it'll be morning, and then, you can open your presents."

Jared is leaning against the inside of the door frame with a half-smile on his face and both hands in his pockets.

"Santa won't come 'til you close your eyes 'an fall asleep," Liam supplies from the top bunk, sounding about as sure as anything Jared's ever heard him talk about.

Jensen nods and tucks the blanket down against Jacob's cheek, leaning in to press a kiss against his forehead. Watching it makes Jared's stomach go all sloppy and sweet.

"Night, Jake," Jensen whispers, pulling back to get off of the mattress and stand up, reaching up to where Liam is cocooned in a mountain of stuffed animals and blankets. A light sleeper who can't very well get to sleep until there's the body weight of a small person in assorted bed dressings on top of him. Jensen tucks him in, anyways. "Night, buddy."

Liam's blinking is so slow and sloppy that Jared can see the sleep coasting behind his eyes from here, as he smiles a little and whispers, "Night, daddy."

 

.

 

Jared follows Jensen’s lead back downstairs after about five minutes of lurking around in the hallway long enough to confirm that both kids had actually fallen asleep.

”Can you grab the bags outta the garage?” Jensen asks him, already wandering down the hall. Jared has it on good authority that Jensen’s got about four hiding spots going this year. “I stuck ‘em all up with the spare tires.”

He nods and heads around to the kitchen, slipping through the door that joins it to the garage before he steps gingerly across the cold concrete to reach up onto the top of the huge shelves, frequently referred to as manly due to the fact that it’s built out of stainless steel and about as thick as a horse. They’ve got all kinds of cool shit stored out here, tools and pool toys and parts of things that he’s pretty sure Jensen had no idea where else to put.

Holding onto the shelf for support with one hand so he can blindly feel around with the other, Jared pokes his tongue against his teeth and hopes that a black widow doesn’t drop outta nowhere and decide to make his finger dessert. He also manages to locate the bags pushed up behind the set of snow tires they must’ve bought recently, though have clearly not had a chance to use yet.

”Gotcha,” He says to nobody in particular, tugging the bags down. Everything inside is all wrapped and ready to go, though Jared does almost fumble the plastic bag full of little things for what he’s gonna assume are their stockings.

Man, Jensen makes a good santa.

After stubbing his bare toe on the concrete steps coming up from the garage, he hobbles through the back hall and around through the kitchen, towards where Jensen is half submered in a couple of black garbage bags full of presents.

”Did you charge the camera battery?” He asks, standing up and looking at Jared with a confused look on his face.

Jared shrugs and unceremoniously blows the bangs out of his eyes.

”I can’t remember if I did or not,” Jensen continues, clearly going down the road to having a conversation with himself.

Deciding to simply ignore him, Jared swings his bag haul over the back of the couch, letting them drop down against the cushions.

”Careful, there’s a puppy in one of those,” Jensen intones, in such a serious voice that it startles a laugh out of Jared.

Jensen shoots him such a private, honest smile that Jared’s stomach jumbles all the way down to his bare toes.

 

.

 

By the time they’re done, it’s almost two hours later and Jared is sprawled out on the couch, mostly asleep, leaving Jensen to stuff the last of the toy cars into Liam’s stocking. Also mostly asleep.

"I quit this happy kids thing," Jensen grumbles, shuffling across the carpet, stooping down to grab a rogue present that must've fallen out of this that or something else.

He haphazardly chucks it under the tree, then turns back to Jared, eyes sleepy and mouth frowny.

"I'll just stay here," Jared offers from the couch, feeling like a sack of syrup as he continues to melt down into the warm spot he's dug out in the couch cushions. He raises his eyebrows at Jensen even though his eyes are mostly closing. "Stand guard. Y'know."

Jensen laughs but comes over to him anyways, grabbing his arms and manhandling him up from the couch.

"Such a bully," Jared breathes, kind of out of breath from the half assed struggle between them.

Jensen starts walking them both backwards, not even worrying about the lights.

"The worst," He agrees.

 

.

 

"What's the one thing you always wanted but you never got?" Jensen asks him that night, as Jared is coming out of the bathroom in a pair of underwear and not much else.

He stops in the doorway and frowns, thinking. Jensen's standing at his dresser, unhooking his watch and twisting the rings off of his fingers. He takes off everything, except for the band around his left finger.

"I wanted a moped when I was younger," Jared finally replies, closing the bathroom door behind him. Jensen hates it when the steam from the shower makes their bed all muggy. "My momma said it was too dangerous, I thought she was lying."

Jensen laughs and unbuttons his shirt from the top, stopping halfway down to turn to Jared and unbutton his cuffs.

"You think we're good parents, Jared?" He asks, and it feels like a stray coming right outta left field. Jared looks up from where he was trying to figure out if one of his feet were bigger than the other, and raises his eyebrows. Jensen just keeps looking right back at him.

He's never felt more truthful in his whole damn life as he says, "You're the best daddy I've ever seen, man." He pauses and then stops to grin, shaking his head. "You damn well run circles around me."

"Bullshit," Jensen tells him, arms hanging there, one hand still halfway trying to unbutton his left cuff. Jared raises his eyebrows and shakes his head again, knows he's not lying. He looks like he's gonna put up half an argument about whether Jared is or isn't a less superior father to him, when he cuts himself off and shakes his head himself, finally getting the button on his cuff open. "They're just good boys, s'all."

Jared nods, looking over at Jensen. "Two of the best I've met," he says, trying to tramp down that little voice that still trips around the back of his head saying, yeah, they may be yours and you may be proud, but they ain't real. And they're not ever gonna be real.

"Yeah," Jensen says softly, nodding, looking down at the bottom half of his shirt buttons. He glances up and over at Jared with real honest and warm eyes, then says, "They are, huh."

Quiet, Jared nods and settles onto his side of the bed, getting his legs under the blanket as he watches Jensen undress the rest of the way and go about what he's done every night since Jared woke up in the living room: double check the bathroom light is off, bathroom door is closed, closet door is closed, none of the jewellery has fallen off the dresser, his alarm clock is on, and that Jared is indeed in bed beside him.

Finally he gets in, sliding under the blankets and yawning before he's even got them half over.

Jared watches, and wonders how much time he's got left here.

"No time for sex," Jensen staggers through another yawn, already fumbling around to turn the bedside lamp off. Jared smirks a bit, but slides down into the bed, already reaching for Jensen's side. Like the old days. "Kids'll be up in four hours, if that."

Nodding into the pillow, Jared feels his eyes starting to slip closed. "Yeah," He agrees, easily.

 

.

 

That night Jared dreams that he comes home from work one day, and the kids are no longer in the house. Jensen is gone, no traces left of anyone, really, just the same old house they'd had all along, all traces of life ripped from within it. Photos gone, Jensen's DVD collection desecrated, no toddler sized shoes hanging around at all.

In his dream Jared wanders through the house touching every door knob, trying every door and looking around every corner. His voice is gone but he doesn’t realize it until he tries to shout and can’t, and that’s about when the dream starts to get frantic and he runs outside, checks the car and the garage and the backyard.

He takes off in his dream, starts running down the street until he falls into an entire audience of paparazzi, all taking his photo, their flashes so bright and blinding that he almost thinks he sees Jensen in his peripheral vision, but then by the time he manages to look, there are only more photographers, dressed in black with their thousand dollar cameras and mexican accents.

"Leave me alone!" He yells at them, as their heads start to spin and they dance around Jared standing there, in the middle of an otherwise empty street.

And then, Jared's honest worst nightmare, as each one disappears and he's left standing in the middle of the street, completely alone.

 

.

 

The next morning Jared is woken up when the wind is knocked out of him straight through his nuts, thanks to Jacob's knees and uncontrollable excitement about the fact that, oh my god, Santa was here, daddy, daddy, Santa, oh my god Santa! Any traces of a nightmare are gone when pain blooms through his middle and he feels like if he wanted to, he could probably puke.

Jared barely gets a glance at the digital clock as Jensen is pulling Liam out of Jared's lap sleepily, trying to get him off the mattress and onto the floor. Jared tries not to wheeze as he rolls to the side and closes his eyes tightly.

Merry Christmas, he thinks, eyes popping back open when there's another cannonball against the column of his spine, Liam's excited chattering coming next.

"Get up," Jensen grumbles from where he's still trying to roll out of bed and keep Jacob from climbing back up onto it.

Jared manages a feeble nod and a pat on Liam's head when he leans over Jared's shoulder, asking, "Why's your face so red, daddy?"

 

.

 

They corral the kids behind a child proof gate that Jensen resurrects in the kitchen just long enough to start the coffee and try to get the sleep grit out of their eyes.

Jared sits at the table, probably barely alive, munching the head off of one of the last of his momma's cookies, shaped like an elf.

By the way, it's barely six o'clock in the morning. All Jared sees outside is black.

"Can we go an just look?" Liam tries to bargain, assuming the older brother role as he leans against the gate with one hip and carefully looks up at Jensen above him, aimlessly wandering back and forth in the kitchen, trying to remember how to function with so little sleep. The last time he had to live like this was when the boys were too young to sleep through the night, and before that, Supernatural.

Jared takes another bite of his cookie and watches as Jensen shoots Liam a cold green eyed glare that says do not fuck with me right now, son.

Frowning immediately, Liam gives up on Jensen and starts back over towards the kitchen table, where Jared had otherwise been sitting unharmed.

"Daddy," Liam greets him, heading straight for the chair opposite Jared. "Can I have a cookie?"

Jared shakes his head and takes another gigantic bite. "Not until you have breakfast," Jensen calls, scowling from over in the kitchen. "Jacob get away from the gate before you pinch your fingers."

Through all of this, Jacob has been sitting on the floor at the gate, soundlessly watching the Christmas tree from the slight angle of sight he has through the hallway and into the kitchen. Clarity breaks through Jensen for all of a half moment as he watches the back of his son's head, completely enamoured of the blinking lights and the magic Jensen doesn't remember having since he turned eleven.

"Just a couple more minutes, buddy," He promises, pouring half of the coffee pot into his wok sized mug. It's huge and blue and Jensen has to use two hands to hold it. "Want some?"

Jared has to blink six or seven times before he realizes Jensen's talking to him; shaking his head and waving his hand a bit, he crawls up off of the chair and tries not to laugh when Liam actually makes an eeee squeal and bounces down off of the chair, knowing exactly what's about to go down in the Padalecki Ackles household.

"Don't knock each other over," Jensen starts, laying down the ground rules as he walks over to the gate, where both boys are now starting to froth at the mouth from being trapped behind it. "Make sure you look at the tag on the present before you open it, if it doesn't have your name on it, just leave it under the tree and go on to the next. Okay?"

Both boys nod, and Jared can actually feel the excitement buzzing through the room. He stands back and smiles as Jensen glances over his shoulder with a little grin and then pulls the gate up and away, setting them both loose on what will soon be present casualties.

"Grab my camera off the table," Jensen laughs, holding his coffee with both hands as they head into the living room, Jared two steps behind.

 

.

 

The rest of the morning is gone in a flurry of wrapping paper and Jensen's fancy bows as both boys vibrate with excitement as they open gift after gift, going from the presents from Jared and Jensen to the ones from their folks and then both their sisters, old family friends who Jensen is actually surprised to hear are still alive, and a few from the guys -- Chris sends a pretty sweet Lego set up, and Tom's wife wrapped up a couple of nice outfits for them both.

Pretty soon everything underneath the tree has been completely decimated, and both boys are exhausted, eyes wide as they sit underneath their mountains of gifts and eye each other carefully, clearly winded.

"Breakfast," Jensen grins, already getting up from the couch.

Thank god. Jared's stomach has been grumbling since the third round of unwrapping began.

 

.

 

Jensen makes a fucking feast of french toast and eggs and bacon and all this awesome stuff that Jared remembers Texas tasting like, and they all sit there in silence, Jensen leaning against the kitchen counter picking straight off the pan, Liam sitting at the island up to his elbows in scrambled eggs and ketchup, Jacob on the floor with a new truck wheeling back and forth with one hand, soldier cut french toast strips disappearing into his mouth with the other.

The kitchen table is Jared's haven. He's got enough room to spread everything out, Jensen is close enough to throw him stuff when he forgets it, like the salt which actually didn't end too badly. He can stretch his legs out and lean against the back of his chair when he's winded, work through the bacon sweats when they come and push Jacob's toy around with his foot when he's demanded attention.

Jensen smiles at him from the other side of the kitchen island, looking so content and happy with the little family that they've created that Jared can't even do anything else other than smile right on back.

"You got bacon in your teeth, hoss," Jensen laughs, leaning back against the counters with a fucking white dish collection showcased in the cabinet above his head, a matching plate stacked with eggs and bacon in his hands, and Jared doesn't even care that they've got matching cutlery and dishware and that Jensen knows how to get crayola out of the walls.

Jared just wishes that he'd known this was what he'd wanted all along.

 

.

 

After Christmas, the dreams get worse. Jared wakes up with the cold sweats two nights in a row just after Boxing Day, which scares him into staying awake all night and turning into a zombie during the day. Jensen got them a four day trip to Mexico for Christmas, a place Jared used to actually kill to spend time in, and Jared has no doubt that now's better a time than ever to go, but they've got commitments, he doesn't even know when they're gonna board a plane between this that and the other.

Shooting starts in just a week and a bit, Jared doesn't know how he's gonna cope living back in L.A.

"I just got a bad feeling about living down there," Jared tells him, one night when they're watching TMZ. Britney Spears is trying to get her two boys out of their school yard and into an awaiting SUV. Jared is white knuckling it the entire time. "Harvey Levin is a douchebag."

Jensen's laying on the couch next to him, one leg kicked up on the coffee table, the other on the floor, Jacob spread out across his lap and chest, completely knocked out.

"It'll be fine," Jensen tries to tell him, brushing the hair off of Jacob's face with his thumb. Jared looks at him sceptically. "We're not Britney, man. Hate to break it to you."

That gets a half smile out of Jared, but it doesn't make him feel any better about the situation.

Not when he feels like he's walking on eggshells with whoever's perfecting this delicate balance already.

 

.

 

Jared is laying in bed with the covers tugged up to his chin when Jensen crawls into bed next to him and rolls over, until he’s propped up above Jared on one elbow, staring down at him with the same old intense green eyes. Jared holds his gaze without trying, blinking slower than molasses drips in the sun.

The feeling makes Jensen smile a sliver and lean down to kiss him, doing it well and proper.

They kiss again and again, until Jensen reaches over to turn the light off, its brightness fading away until the only light is coming in from the hallway.

”Jensen,” Jared whispers, mouth coasting against Jensen’s chin as he pulls back, eyes flickering down Jared’s face. His hand comes up to comb through Jared’s hair, thumb relaxing down until it curves against the shell of Jensen’s ear.

Jared looks at him then. Really looks at him, and Jensen looks back, this love lost little smile spread across Jensen’s mouth that gets Jared all twisted up feeling inside. Makes him wanna grab onto Jensen, and hold on until they’ve burned all their bridges down.

He reaches up a hand that feels like a limb made outta lead would, maybe, and coasts his palm down over Jensen’s shoulder blade, back up and over the thick muscle there, across the side of his throat until he finds his fingers scratching into the hair at the nape of Jensen’s neck.

”You’ve always made me feel right,” Jared says. He doesn’t mean to, but he knows he means it. “How do you do that?”

Grin stretching, Jensen watches him with these soft eyes that flicker back and forth over Jared’s lost expression. He doesn’t hesitate as he says, “Cause I know you, man. I always have.”

”Guess you do, huh,” Jared whispers, as Jensen leans back in and mouths the edge of Jared’s lip, making him smile quiet and turn his head proper.

Jensen rolls on top of him, laughing about a dead arm as he does it, until he’s hovering right over Jared, all around his senses. Don’t know how he does it, but Jensen gets him riled up so quick and full of thoughts that make him hot from the inside out. For Jared, love always felt a lot like a panic attack. Sudden and completely jarring, making him all shaky inside and irrational upstairs and down.

Resting his head back against the pillow, Jared kisses back when Jensen leans in deep, making these half quiet noises as he starts with a slow grind of his hips against Jared’s lap, teeth against Jared’s mouth in a smile when all Jared gives him is a moan and a sneak of the hand up the leg of Jensen’s underwear.

”I’m just really happy here, you know,” Jared pants, eyes starting to water, desperation starting to feel a whole lot like the slow wind uncurling in his belly.

He opens his eyes and finds Jensen looking back at him real careful like, considering the pull in Jared’s face, the shadows Jared is sure Jensen can see flickering back and forth in his eyes.

”Just,” He shakes his head and pushes himself up onto both elbows. Jensen leans forward and holds onto his face with both hands, kissing him. Jared closes his eyes and speaks against Jensen’s mouth, saying, “Just, don’t ever let me leave.”

Jensen breathes in rhythm as he shudders against Jared, hips still moving slowly, the muscles in his belly jerking as he moves a little faster, one hand snapping away from Jared’s cheek to hold him by the jaw as he stares at him, right at his insides, and then leans in to kiss him deep.

Breathing hard, Jared tries to hold the tears in as he wraps one arm wound tight around Jensen’s middle. He makes it his business to hold on and on and on, and wishes to whoever is listening that they’ll never make him let go again.

 

.

 

That night he manages to fall asleep after coasting a hand up and down Jensen’s back for going on forty minutes.

”Finally,” Jensen tells him in his dream. Except it’s not Jensen, really. Jared recognizes the whole outfit get-up from a romantic comedy that Jensen did a couple of years after the series ended in ’11. He’s wearing a black suit, crisp white button down under that, a thin tie knotted around his neck that reminds Jared of the one he wore the day they got married.

In this dream Jensen looks like he’s in love, eyes wide, his hair styled unkempt.

”Hard work lately, huh?” Jensen asks him.

Jared sees himself come outta nowhere, except this is Him him, the dumbass who picked a fight with Chris and then flew up to Vancouver with his dick hanging out of his pants. He looks old and tired and not at all as gorgeous as Zooey Deschanel did when Jensen fell in love with her in the movie.

”Who are you?” Jared asks in the dream, which Jared can fell his subconscious immediately pick at and start to fight -- you world class idiot, it’s Jensen, possibly the only human being walking the earth that you can pick out from the back of one ear in a crowd -- but the Los-Jared that Jared is watching stand in front of the romantic comedy version of his Jensen doesn’t bat an eye.

God, what was his name in that movie? Fuck, it was something simple, biblical. Something like…

Ben. That’s it, there’s no question that isn’t what it was. Ben smiles a little at Jared upon the slow recognition, but it’s starting to go faulty at the edges, a little more faint.

”I’m the love of your life,” Ben tells Jared, holding both of his arms out wide. “C’mon, man. It’s me. I mean, I know the suit’s a little flaky, but…”

Jared shakes his head, and then just like that, quick as a snap of the fingers Ben starts to flicker out. And, Jared knows that whether it’s realistically Jensen or not, it’s still Jensen’s face that starts to fade, looking upset as he flickers like a dampened candlelight.

”I’m trying to save you,” Jensen garbles, but Jared ignores him in the dream, ignores him until he almost fades out completely. At the last second he bursts back sudden and quick, bright and full as he races towards Jared and yells, “Jared, listen, you have to remember this. It’s corpus nucleus, Jared, don’t! – “

And then Jensen flickers out completely. The dream version of Jared pops like a balloon right after and falls to the floor. That’s when Jared snaps awake, out of breath and sweating bullets.

 

.

 

”Corpus Nucleus” is the first thing Jared’s mind rolls over as he tries to catch his breath, but just as quickly as the words came they’re gone again. Then it’s only Jensen making a sleepy grab for his shoulder, completely worn out from spending the first half of his day corralling two little boys hopped up on sugar, and finishing out the last half hanging around in front of an oven, stuffing shit up a hole in a turkey.

”Whatsamatter,” Jensen slurs at him, palm flexing against where he accidentally smacked Jared in the bare stomach.

Jared shakes his head and reaches down for Jensen's hand, holding onto it carefully, warm and real in his own. He shakes his head again and leans over, kissing the roundest part of Jensen's shoulder.

"Think I ate too much," He lies, already half way out of bed. He kisses Jensen proper on the sleepy mouth as he tugs the blankets back up properly, distracted by the thought he can feel stuck somewhere in his mind, a name on the tip of his tongue that he just can't -- can't -- "Go back to sleep, I'm just gonna go get some water and hang out downstairs for a minute."

Jensen tries to stare at him through the complete dark of the room, but only lasts doing that for eight seconds before he blinks sleepily and nods, lowering his head back down to the feather top pillow.

"Bring me the newspaper back," Jensen says, but Jared knows he doesn't mean it, one of those funny things that you say in-between reality and your dreams, a quick request that makes more sense within the confines of your head.

Jared nods anyways and touches Jensen's ankle through the blanket as he rounds the bed.

"Sure thing," He promises, still caught up in trying to remember.

It was two names, and Jared can feel them stuck to the tip of his tongue.

 

.

 

Jared turns on all the lights in the hallway and wanders down to the office, taking refuge in Jensen's chair because it's far superior in the comfort department than his own. He spins back and forth slowly, trying to...

Trying to...

He closes his eyes and tips his head back against the head rest of the chair. He'd been dreaming, and he'd been there, but it wasn't Jared with two kids Jared, it was Los-Jared with the douchebag tendencies and no Jensen to make him a real person. And Jensen, fuck he'd been there too, but he hadn't been Jensen, he'd been that dumbshit from that romantic comedy he had shot in Vegas with whatserface.

What had his character's name been… Ben?

"Totally Ben," Jared mutters to himself, twirling a bit in the chair. And there had been the explicit name of something that sounded vaguely familiar, something like --

Jared closed his eyes tighter and tried to put himself back into the dream, when there had been --

Corpus Nucleus. It pops into his head so sharp and quickly that Jared is surprised he doesn't hear glass break.

"Pen and paper," Jared continues to talk to himself, spinning around in the chair to make grabby hands for Jensen's legal pad and a pen. He scribbles the name down, probably spells it wrong, but there ain't nobody here but him. He stares at the name and then says to himself, "Okay, officially gone crazy. Jesus, Jared."

Shaking his head, he stares at the name on the legal pad as he rocks back and forth in the office chair, letting his mind roam and wander, but nothing comes to the forefront, not like the name Ben had. It was like his subconscious fucking knew exactly what thought to push and where, into the right spot where it knew Jared couldn’t just sit down and ignore it.

Jared rolls over to the computer and types it into Google, just to see if he's spelled it right.

He doesn't expect it when his stomach drops to his toes and his heart st-st-stutters to a stop right in his chest.

 

.

 

Doctor Ben Hammond, with a PhD in amygdala purging and retrieval services, that's the first search listing that comes up.

"No," Jared whispers to himself, eyes closed, as he clicks around, trying to get the window to close blindly. "Not right now."

Pretending that he didn't see the name of Doctor Hammond's memory purging service, otherwise known as Corpus Nucleus.

 

.

 

He goes back upstairs to lay beside Jensen in the dark, mouth flooded with that sweet sour spit that comes just before hurling your guts out. Jared feels like more is gonna come out than what he had for dinner, though, as he stares at the ceiling and Jensen shifts around beside him, making quiet sleepy noises and cuddling into Jared's side as the breaking daylight paints white strips across the ceiling and Jared realizes that he hasn't yet slept a real wink.

What did you do, Jared thinks to himself, rolling over onto his side to watch Jensen sleeping beside him, completely content, one hand under the pillow his head is on, the other under the belly of his t-shirt.

And he has no idea what all of this means, not yet, but he doesn't know if he's got the heart to find out.

Because he knows for sure that his is the only one that's going to be broken by the time the day is through.

 

.

 

"Did you sleep at all last night?" Jensen asks him a few hours later, as he's rationing out breakfast from the big pan of scrambled eggs and bits of ham on the oven.

Jared shakes his head and stares at Liam and Jacob sitting at the table across from him, talking to each other about something Jared can't follow with such a sleep addled brain. Kid speak is completely over his head, sometimes. Jared glances up as Jensen walks over with two plastic bowls, one car themed and the other dinosaur.

"Liam gets dinosaur today," He says before setting the bowls down, cutting out any chance of having a squabble so early in the morning. Jensen goes to walk away but frowns, turning back to Jared with a genuinely concerned expression on his face. "Man, you really don't look very good. Are you okay? Jared."

When he realizes he hasn't exactly responded, Jared just shakes his head and tries to sit up properly, looking up at Jensen.

"I don't think I am," He says, honestly, and watches the concern drape across Jensen's face like a stage curtain.

 

.

 

Jensen tells Jared he's gonna get the boys outta the house for a couple hours, take them to the park to build a couple snowmen and romp around in the two inches of snow that've been turning to ice the last day and a half.

"See you soon," Jensen tells him, kissing the top of his head, palming the curve of Jared's jaw as he stands over where he's sitting on the couch, feeling completely disjointed from the situation. More than he did when he fell outta fucking nowhere and woke up on the carpet of some alternate reality where, where --

The kids are standing by the front door smiling at Jared, like he's their daddy.

"Call me if you need anything, we're just gonna go down the street," Jensen keeps going, bending down to pick the television remote from under the couch where Jacob likes to hide it, and set it on the coffee table for easy Jared reach instead.

Jared nods and they leave him, sitting there in the living room with nothing on TV and a scattered pile of new Christmas toys all over the floor.

He has to resist kicking the truck set his momma got one of them on his way to the office.

What was that she always used to tell him? If it's too good to be true, it probably is?

Yeah, that.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At 11:45, they both have enough wine circulating through them to melt against each other on the floor, leaning shoulder to shoulder, each with a glass in their hand as they watch the TV screen placidly.
> 
> Jared’s eyes are half closed as they flicker over to check with the nearest clock, and then confirm that with the timer on the screen. Dick Clark says that there are fifteen minutes and some change left before the new year.
> 
> ”I wish I hadn’t done it,” Jensen says abruptly, as Miley Cyrus comes on stage in a shiny little silver number and a pair of stilettos. She’s grown a set of banging legs since the last time Jared saw her on screen. Jensen watches Jared’s face, and says, soft, “And now I know I’m not gonna remember any of this.”

It takes Jared ten minutes to skim the whole thing.

Dr. Hammond’s website explains the entire procedure, from start to finish. Every detail, each cut and clamp is earmarked, and Jared works through the whole thing in detail. He’s still absorbing it when Jensen and the boys come clambering back through the front door, almost two hours after he started.

But here’s what Jared understand so far:

Corpus Nucleus, a new, cutting edge science. Can’t live without your childhood pet who only died three weeks ago? Don’t want to remember your parents tragic car accident? Want to, let’s just use this as an example, get rid of a divorce that stung just a little too deep?

If that’s not for you, maybe you’d be interested in erasing entire chunks of your childhood from memory, coming out of the procedure with no idea of where you came from or who your parents might have been. Jared thinks that the last one is the funniest: a chance to erase every bitter divorce meeting, the arguments leading up to it.

Every memory about the person you divorced, from the first day you met, forward.

Jared feels sick by the time he finishes reading. Not only will the company wipe full memories from a patient’s mind, but it goes as far as to invoke a chain reaction in the fucking fabric of space and time and, from what Jared understands, makes it possible to erase actual, palpable physical memories. Photos, video tapes, letters, legal documents.

They can reset everything back to zero, as though it had never even happened.

As though all Jensen had thought of their marriage and subsequent divorce was just a bag of throwaway memories. He had decided to get rid of it all, instead of keeping close what had meant the most to them. And whether Jared was a douchebag in reality or not, his momma had damned well taught him how to keep those special things close to your chest.

Jared can’t even figure out if this shit is legal or not.

He types ‘human brain’ and ‘memory purge’ into Google. 94,500 results come up, the number making that deep water treading feeling in his stomach drop another inch or two. The first result is a link to an article on Newsweek of all places, and it says ‘CONTROVERSIAL NEW PROCEDURE LEGALIZED IN CANADA: WHERE DO WE DRAW THE LINE?’

”Jesus, Jensen,” Jared whispers to himself, clicking on the link.

The article is a seven part series essentially exploring the dangers of fucking with the human mind. Jared reads that there’s an entire laundry list of side effects -- scary shit like cancer, hallucinations, heart palpitations and memory loss in areas that you don’t want erased.

Then there’s disorientation, dizziness, chronic migraines… and that’s only beginning to scratch the surface.

It’s halfway through reading the third part that Jared actually starts to cry, a fist sized lump getting itself stuck deep in the back of Jared’s throat. An ex-patient of a doctor who was practicing for a short time in Manitoba was interviewed a few months before the article was published.

One of her quotes is featured prominently on the right side of the page: “It was the worst decision I have ever made.”

Subconvious desanguination. Jared reads it over three or four times, that’s what they called one of the side effects, something that has happened in so many documented cases that the CIHR has actually coined a term for it. Memory haemorrhaging, the woman in the article calls it, a 1 in 3 chance of having it happen to you post-treatment. She says that she was never warned of it, one of those side effects that, so far, doctors have failed to fully mention.

Jared scrolls down the page, breath still hitching as he reads.

From what he understands, the haemorrhaging occurs in instances where the actual subject of the memory removal is thrown into a sudden coma-like state of living through the patient’s subconscious. Doctors still don’t understand how it happens, where the connection is, or how to break or even prevent it, and that’s why it goes unmentioned so often. All they do know is that it’s only mildly rare, and can last anywhere from one to two hours in reality.

In the dream world, from hearing accounts of those that this has actually happened to, the one or two hours actually feel like weeks. The longest on record is seventeen days.

Jared’s eyes tear up all over again. The woman in the article had her estranged best friend removed from her memory, and found out six months after her final treatment that her friend had fallen into a coma out of nowhere. It hadn’t lasted long, but she’d been in perfect health before she passed out and after she woke up.

Hand shaking, Jared starts to count on his fingers.

Seventeen days will fall on New Year’s Eve.

And that’s the moment that Jensen and the boys come home.

 

.

 

Jensen knows that something is up as soon as he comes back through the door with both boys trailing behind him, cold damp to the core with bright red noses and wet gloves sticking to their hands.

"Daddy I built a snowman," Jacob starts nattering away at him, as soon as he locks his eyes on Jared standing in the doorway between the office and living room, eyes pink. "Then I fell into Liam's fort 'an he pushed me over, and I hit my head on daddy's knee but I'm okay. A lady told me she liked my gloves." He holds his hands up, grinning, and looks up at Jared. "See my gloves?"

Nodding and smiling a little, Jared bends down and rests on one knee, tugging at the wet buckle under Jacob's chin.

"I like your gloves, too," Jared tells him, making Jacob laugh and touch his cheek with an ice cold hand.

Jensen watches him carefully from the hallway as he takes off his own jacket and pulls his snowy boots off, leaving them on the mat inside the door.

They don't say a word to each other, letting the kids fill the silence between them instead.

 

.

 

Jared functions on autopilot for the next three days. If the last two weeks have beat anything into his head at all, it’s how to schedule and care for two kids without so much as breaking a sweat.

He does find himself walking on eggshells around Jensen, though. Looking over at him every day with sad eyes and a pit in his belly, everything slowing down to a full stop until he finds the both of them standing in the kitchen on the 30th.

They can hear the boys bickering and playing around in the other room crystal clear.

”I know, okay?” Jensen tells him out of nowhere, leaning against the kitchen island with one hand. Jared looks over, eyes widening, but Jensen won’t move his gaze away from where it seems glued to the counter top. He repeats himself quietly. “I know and I’m sorry.”

Jared’s face heats up as he looks over from where he was wiping the kitchen table down with a dish rag, his eyes already narrowed and body willing to fight. Then he takes a moment and looks at Jensen’s appearance, his body language, the broken curve of his spine.

He looks like he’s the one who’s been wronged, here.

”Dunno what you’re talking about,” Jared says instead of instigating a fight, his mother’s passive aggressiveness rearing its head as he steps away from the table, and starts over to where Jensen is hiding behind the counter. He looks sick and tired and all kinds of the other things that Jared rightly feels.

Jensen looks up and gets him right dead in the eye when Jared is within range.

”Jared, I didn’t mean for it to happen,” He says.

Jaw set and tight, Jared walks right up until he’s all of an inch away from Jensen’s face. With their kids in the next room and the sound of compact cars driving down their little suburban road outside, Jared narrows his eyes to slits and hisses, “Don’t tell me anything. I don’t want to know.”

Blinking his wet eyes back, Jensen nods as Jared backs down and then moves over to the sink, letting the wet dish rag drop against the stainless steel bottom with a wet slap.

 

.

 

He spends the afternoon trying to take in as much of Jacob and Liam as he can.

Everything about them, really, the way that they have the slope of Jensen’s nose, and the rhythm of their speaking that Jared thinks sounds a whole lot like his own. He watches their favourite TV show and sits on the floor to play their toys with them, then laughs until he’s almost inside out at some of the things that Jacob comes up with.

The entire afternoon is spent imagining on the same carpeted floor that Jared woke up on not two weeks ago now, and, before he realizes it, it’s dark outside and Jacob is trying not to nod off right where he’s sitting, propped up against one of their overstuffed leather chairs.

 

.

 

The next day is New Years Eve. That’s what Jared knows.

Jared also knows when he wakes up that morning, that it’s officially his 17th day in this alternate universe that has he and Jensen as the perfect little family, and, most importantly, that seventeen is the longest time anyone has spent in any of these psychological cases to date.

”Wake up,” He tells Jensen, before rolling out of bed.

 

.

 

Jensen is watching the boys eat breakfast at the kitchen table when Jared comes to stand beside him at the counter, his usual spot between the sink and the island.

”Is this what you always wanted?” He whispers, feeling sad and let down as he leans in as close as he can let himself, resting one palm flat against the counter top.

Jensen turns to face him, and they’re almost nose to nose they end up so close.

He offers the smallest, saddest smile that Jared has ever seen, and answers, “Yes.”

 

.

 

”So I get to stay up until midnight tonight?” Liam confirms, as Jared is trying to scrub the spaghetti sauce out of his hair. He’s pretty sure it’s been there since they actually had spaghetti on Tuesday, which also happens to be two nights ago now.

Jared nods and shields Liam’s eyes while he water buckets the suds out of his hair. Liam does his duty and closes his eyes tight as Jared has ever seen anyone try. He also takes to holding his breath and plugging his nose and generally shutting down just for the small event to take place.

”Yep,” Jared tells him, filling the bucket up again, dumping it. “Right ‘til it’s a new year. We’re gonna have a party.”

Liam looks interested at the prospect of attending such a grown up party, and both his eyes pop open even though there’s a single bead of water still trickling down his left temple. For Liam, this is generally too close to have liquid anywhere near any kind of facial orifice.

”What kind of party?” He asks, instead of yelling about water in his eyes as he raises one eyebrow a mere fraction of an inch.

It makes Jared smile.

”A really fun one,” Jared tells him, leaning forward to pull the plug from the bottom of the tub. The arms of his shirt are already soaked through, even though he’s only had to wrangle one freakishly strong child near the water. Jared wipes his sweaty forehead off with his sleeve and continues, “Me, you, Jacob, daddy, an Iron Chef marathon, and some chinese food.”

Liam grins and starts trying to stand up in the slippery bath tub, grappling to hold onto one of Jared’s forearms for support.

”I love chinese food,” He sighs, hopping out onto the thick bath mat.

Jared wraps a towel around his shoulders superman-style and half heartedly dries off one side of his upper torso with one hand. Even in his own daily routine he doesn’t dry himself off as best he should, preferring to drip all over the bathroom floor and sometimes into the bedroom.

”Me too. Go tell Jacob it’s his turn,” Jared says, sending Liam out of the bathroom with his towel and dripping wet hair.

But that’s how they do it, he thinks to himself, and as Jared finds himself leaning back against the toilet and actually reflecting on all of the little things he’s gonna miss when he inevitably wakes up to reality, he finds that being a daddy is really gonna be one of them.

 

.

 

Jared calls his momma and Jensen calls his after that. It’s a big speaker phone party, and they all wish each other a Happy New Year and both Jared and Jensen do a pretty decent job at pretending that nothing’s wrong.

He’s surprised that neither Liam or Jacob have picked up on it just yet. From what he’s coming to find out, kids are generally better at figuring these kinds of things out than full grown men are.

”Jacob ate a piece of popcorn he found under the table,” Liam says at one point, pulling Jared’s concentration away from the television, and to his son, sitting in front of him trying to pick something out of his back teeth.

Then all of a sudden it’s five o’clock and Jensen is on the phone with the Noodle Box to schedule a pick-up for seven.

Jared keeps at his spot on the floor with both his boys trying to tackle him backwards, and tries not to think about how he feels like he’s sitting on a ticking time bomb.

 

.

 

He's the one who goes to pick the chinese up, leaving Jensen to get the kids in their pyjamas because they both know neither of them are actually gonna make it to see the end of the countdown.

Jared gets stuck in traffic through Jericho, eventually finding out it's a rear ender when everyone gets moving again and he manages to drive by the three cars sitting bumper to crushed bumper in the furthest lane. There are three cops and a fireman standing around, trying to motion people by, but everyone slows down to look, pointing and talking to whoever is in the passenger seat about the rumpled fenders and the gas trickling along the lane lines.

By the time he gets to The Noodle Box it's almost seven thirty, but he leaves with everything in tact, except for the staff of the restaurant who all seem to be running around with their heads cut off, no shortage of things to do but not enough people to work with.

Jared jumps back in his SUV and everything is cleared by the time he passes through Kits. In fact, he makes it back to the house in record time, fast enough to watch the last ten minutes of an episode of The Simpsons with Liam.

There are already plates set out on the coffee table so Jared sets his industrial sized brown paper bags down and settles in on the floor beside his son, leaning against the couch behind him and sprawling his legs out underneath the table.

Jensen comes into the living room with Jacob on one hip and sets him down opposite Liam, then bends down and sits him on the floor across from Jared, who's already ripping through the bags.

"I'm gonna eat with chopsticks," Jacob announces, holding up a pair of plastic chopsticks that are joined at the top and have a little alligator head to hold on to.

Jared smiles across at him then glances over his head at the TV, where FOX’s usual New Years Eve programming is already on, a ready and waiting countdown.

Four hours to go, Jared thinks, emptying some chow mein onto Jacob's plate.

He can't figure out whether everything has been worth it, or not.

But he wants to think that it has.

 

.

 

Jacob falls asleep just after 9:30, and, surprising them both, Liam makes it until 10:45. They leave them each where they fell asleep, propped up on opposite ends of the couch, with Jared and Jensen still sitting on the floor between them, behind the coffee table.

”Wine?” Jensen asks, halfway through a commercial break advertising a carpet warehouse that just opened in Coquitlam, and a 604 local singles party line. Before Jared even has a chance to formulate a response, Jensen is already halfway up off of the floor, saying to himself, “Wine sounds awesome.”

So Jared watches him leave instead, and leans his head back against the couch cushions. Liam’s had a cold since Christmas, the soft snoring coming from a foot above where Jared sits lulls him into a fake sincerity of feeling normal.

Liam’s sticky fingers brush against the crown of his head as he shifts, and Jared can’t make himself care.

It’s only an hour left until the ball drops in Times Square, until it’s eighteen days and Jared is either making medical history, or is back where he was before all of this started.

Jensen comes back with a bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other, managing to settle himself back down on the floor before the show comes back from commercial and another model Band of the Moment breaks into one of this year’s top hits.

”Thanks,” Jared says quietly, as Jensen hands over a half full wine glass.

Jared accepts the glass and watches Jensen’s face, how he’s frowning with his bottom lip but nods his head anyways. Jared watches as he sucks a drip of wine from the pad of his thumb before going to work on his own glass.

Like the feeling in his stomach Jared’s glass hangs there in midair, where he’s holding it with his elbow propped back against the couch, eyes caught on Jensen’s profile in the dim light of the room.

As Jensen moves to rest the wine bottle back on the coffee table, Jared extends his arm and tips his glass towards Jensen’s.

”To tonight,” He toasts, pausing as Jensen stares back at him with his deer in the headlights expression. After a moment of quiet, he slowly raises his glass as well. Jared studies his face, his eyes, and says, “Actually, to the last two weeks. I don’t regret it.”

With that, he clinks his glass against Jensen’s, and unceremoniously takes a few deep swallows.

His teeth clink against the glass rim as he pulls it away from his mouth. And he thinks, this is it. Fifty minutes to go until midnight.

 

.

 

At 11:45, they both have enough wine circulating through them to melt against each other on the floor, leaning shoulder to shoulder, each with a glass in their hand as they watch the TV screen placidly.

Jared’s eyes are half closed as they flicker over to check with the nearest clock, and then confirm that with the timer on the screen. Dick Clark says that there are fifteen minutes and some change left before the new year.

”I wish I hadn’t done it,” Jensen says abruptly, as Miley Cyrus comes on stage in a shiny little silver number and a pair of stilettos. She’s grown a set of banging legs since the last time Jared saw her on screen. Jensen watches Jared’s face, and says, soft, “And now I know I’m not gonna remember any of this.”

Jared licks his lips carefully and watches Jensen’s face change, his eyes flickering and then going soft with the realization of everything coming down to this. These few moments.

”I never woulda erased you,” Jared tells him, voice careful, as Liam begins to mumble to himself above them. Jared realizes that Jensen is about two handshakes away from crying when his eyes suddenly go wet looking and his bottom lip starts to fold.

Jensen nods and blinks at the honest truth, a tear rolling down his cheek. He wipes it off with the palm of his hand and then turns back to face the TV, saying, voice warbling, “Worst part of it all is gonna be losing this.”

Nodding, and knowing that he means and feels it, Jared leans over to wrap one of his arms around Jensen’s shoulders. The other holds his wine glass still, precarious. And at first that’s what it seems Jensen is, too, when he doesn’t budge, tense in Jared’s hold.

Glass clanking down to set against the table, Jared wraps his other arm around Jensen, too, body turning until they’re both wrapped up in a hug, a real hug.

”I’ll miss ya,” Jared whispers into Jensen’s shoulder, feeling Jensen blink against the side of his neck, the warm roll of tears down the collar of Jared’s shirt. His throat starts to thicken up as he pulls away and tries to look Jensen dead in the face. “You’re not gonna remember me at all?”

Jensen stops ducking his head long enough to look up into Jared’s face and frown, the line of his mouth wobbling. He finally manages to shrug, obviously not able to speak, as he blinks again and two more tears roll down the side of his face.

And Jared is suddenly so viciously sad for his best friend that he feels his face heat up as he leans in again and tucks Jensen even closer, both arms wrapped tight and warm around the curve of his back.

”I’m so sorry, Jared,” Jensen manages to snivel, into the curve of Jared’s shoulder where he’s hidden his face.

Jared shakes his head, and stares at a spot in the carpet just over Jensen’s shoulder.

”Don’t ever be sorry,” He whispers back, letting his eyes drift closed.

 

.

 

At 11:55 they hurry up the staircase, Jensen close in on Jared’s heels with both of their boys still fast asleep in the living room downstairs.

”Five minutes is all we got left,” Jensen whispers, eyes still watery and red as Jared turns around to grab him even though they’re still both very much in motion. He gets Jensen by the back of the skull and angles to kiss him good and proper -- if this is gonna be the last time in both their lives, then Jared is going to make it damned well count.

He starts walking Jensen backwards down the front hall, shoulder hitting the doorframe of their bedroom before the rest of his body does, jarring the both of them.

”What happens at midnight?” Jared tries to joke, even though he doesn’t do it with much conviction as they both back-walk until his legs hit the bed and they both fall backwards into it, Jensen coming down in his lap. “Do I turn back into a pumpkin?”

Jensen manages to smile down at him despite everything as he leans in to kiss Jared again, and god, above everything else Jared knows that he means it. Means every second that could actually very well be the last second, and Jared starts to think frantically, wondering if they actually have five minutes, or if the clock had been fast and --

And what if they’re really down to only half a minute? What if they only have ten seconds?

”I don’t care if you forget me,” Jared tries to tell him with as much honesty as he can. Jensen crawls on top of him and they fall from Jared’s propped up elbows, backwards into the mattress. Jensen hovers above him, is all Jared can see as he says, “I’m always gonna remember you, man.”

That gets another watery, guilt riddled smile out of Jensen as Jared leans up to kiss him again, one hand palming the back of his skull, pulling him closer.

”Don’t,” Jensen whispers, when he catches Jared trying to check the clock on the other side of the room. He shakes his head when Jared catches his eye, and that’s the second when Jared can see the fear, not just the open-ended sadness but the terror in Jensen’s eyes at the realization that, very soon, everything he used to know will be gone.

In the dark of the bedroom, all Jared can see are the yellowed hallway lamps leaning in, sprawling bright, crooked lines across their bedroom floor.

”You gotta let me go,” Jared tells him, into the quiet space between their mouths as he slides one hand up the back of Jensen’s shirt, palm encountering only the warm, soft skin there.

Jensen shakes his head like his mind has been made up, Jared feels the back of his skull sink a little further into the mattress.

It’s close. Jared doesn’t know for sure but he can feel that it’s all almost over.

”Jared,” Jensen murmurs, blinking, blinking again, looking down at Jared’s face with his eyebrows furrowed, his hair mashed to one side of his head that makes Jared’s heart thump thump thump. His voice is starting to shake again. “I wish we coulda done things different.”

At the intonation of Jensen’s voice, Jared feels himself starting to get choked up again too.

”I know,” He says quiet, running his hands over Jensen like he means it, like he’s gonna be the one to forget what this felt like or the way he curved just there. “I know, and I just want – “

Jensen tightens the grip he’s got around Jared’s hand and interrupts, sounding angry and despondent and all of the things Jared doesn’t ever remember Jensen being here, “I’m not going to remember any of this and I – “

 

.

 

”You gotta let me go, man,” He hears himself say, somewhere, voice sounding like pouring milk as he drifts. When he was twelve and had his tonsils removed, waking up from the anaesthetic felt a whole lot like this.

And then quick as it came, a sheet of icy rain falls over him, and that warm feeling vanishes.

 

.

 

Jared wakes up on the floor of Jensen’s bachelor pad in Vancouver, with a crick in his back and an impressive lump on his head.

”Jesus Christ man,” Chris swears, coming outta fucking nowhere with an angry glare to his face, and one fist still curled at his hip.

Blinking, trying to get everything back into focus with both eyebrows shot halfway up his forehead, Jared tries to sit up, but just about makes himself pass out again at the quick movement..

”You dumb fuck,” Chris continues swearing at him, bending at the knee to crouch down beside where Jared is half sitting, half sprawled. Jared is still trying to figure out what the hell happened when Chris bounces a little on his heels and snaps, “You knocked yourself out by charging at the fridge like a damn bull.”

Squinting up at the bright light overhead, Jared pushes himself up onto one elbow, and holds onto his forehead with the one free hand he has left. Trying to focus in on his current surroundings proves to be a bit harder.

And he doesn’t see Jensen sitting on the kitchen counter looking a half mix of annoyed and anxious until it’s too late.

”Can I have some water?” Jared blurts, instead of saying anything he really knows that he should. Chris scoffs, so Jared goes with plan B and closes his eyes as he tries to lay back down. The floor seems to be a lot comfier than the two cold glares he’s otherwise getting. “Or an ice pack?”

Chris doesn’t get him the water or the ice, but, after a few minutes of fevered stage-whispering between Jensen and Chris, Jared hears Jensen slide down off of the counter and follow Chris straight outta the room.

With the coast as clear as it’s gonna be, Jared cracks his eyes open, and tries not to remind himself of how badly he has already fucked all of this up.

 

.

 

”I don’t give a fuck, Jensen!” Chris hisses at him in the living room, pointing his mom finger around and everything. “He is not your friend, and it’s not our job to help him anymore, that’s ‘sall.”

Jensen frowns, and smacks Chris’ hand out of his face. “I’m not kicking him out on his ass ‘til you fess up and tell me what the hell he’s here for!”

”You wanna know, really?” Chris bitches at him, getting only a blank look from Jensen in return. “He’s your ex-husband, as in married, dude, who you also got erased from your memory because he fucked you ass-backwards. Should I continue on?”

Frown deepening, Jensen tries to edge around Chris’ shoulder to look back into the kitchen. All he can see through the doorway are Jared’s feet laying there still, pointing in two different directions.

”I think I remember getting him erased,” Jensen says, mildly, like he’s telling Chris the time or the current weather conditions outside. He looks Chris back in the face. “I didn’t do everything that doctor told me to, man, you know that.”

Glaring’s about the best thing he can think to do, so Chris does, hard, and crosses both arms over his chest.

”I’m not your mother, or your keeper,” Chris tells him finally, voice level. Jensen looks at him in a ‘no shit’ way. “But that guy in there? He is no good for you, man, and if you were ever actually gonna listen to me, now would be a good time to do it.”

It takes a minute to digest those words, and that’s all before Jensen is stepping past him, mouthing only ‘sorry’ at Chris as he shrugs and holds the glare he gets in return over his shoulder and all the way out the door.

 

.

 

Jensen finds Jared laying on the floor in the exact same position he left him in ten minutes ago.

”You need to tell me everything,” Is all he says, standing parallel to Jared’s feet.

Jared opens his eyes slowly and tries to focus on Jensen, even though there's a halo of track lighting coming from behind his head.

"Yeah," Jared agrees, fingers flexing against where they rest over his forehead. "I was gonna say the same thing to you."

 

.

 

Jensen explains the whole thing from the get-go, how Sophia had been the one to give him the card, and how his first visit had really only been on a whim. He tells Jared about the side effects and how Chris had come up to take care of him, how his parents still have no idea he had done it at all.

It makes Jared miserable to hear the whole story, laid out with no in-between the lines right in front of him.

He tells Jensen his side of it, too. Doesn’t bring up a word about the crazy shit he dreamed, but is honest in his reasons for coming up to Vancouver. He tells Jensen about the altered photos, how Jared had been hard-pressed to find any real evidence that they were ever really together at all.

That they had ever been together, and in doing so had also kept a good hold on actually having their relationship turn into something as beautiful as Jared had seen in his dream.

”This is really weird,” Jared whispers, during a lull in their conversation that has the air turning thick with self-consciousness on both of their parts. To not have the air fuelled with anything, no hypertension of their past love connection or even the substantial strain that had followed them both throughout all of the divorce proceedings. Jared looks over at Jensen, honest. “You really don’t remember anything?”

Jensen shakes his head, the one motion that makes Jared’s stomach capsize.

”Not a lot. Barely anything, really. I guess there are a few spots he missed, though. You know I was supposed to throw out everything that would remind me of you, but… I, uh,” He pauses to look at the floor with a guilty expression on his face, one hand coasting up to the nape of his neck. Classic Jensen body language. “I didn’t do that.”

Following Jensen’s gaze to the floor, Jared nods his head and says, “Oh.”

He knows it’s not helpful to say. But he finds himself stuck as his entire chest clenches in one hot and cold sensation that has him feeling so homesick he could cry forever and never lay down happy after again.

 

.

 

He’s back at the hotel that night, after getting a migraine so sudden and so bad at Jensen’s place that he’d almost passed out on his feet. Now he’s alone, sitting on the couch in his Calvin Klein underwear with a block of ice wrapped in a towel and pressed to his head.

The TV isn’t on, his phone is on silent. The drapes are drawn. Everything brings up a memory of his dream so sharply and so vividly that he’s beginning to feel it would be more comfortable to live with his insides out.

That night, he doesn’t sleep at all. At four in the morning he finally takes two and a half morphine pills and conks out on the couch in a dreamless haze.

 

.

 

”He told me he’s gonna stay up here for a couple of weeks,” Jensen tells Chris that night, over a couple of beers.

Chris looks at him sceptically, but doesn’t say much other than, “Uh huh.”

Then again, Jensen doesn’t give two shits about Chris’ opinion when it comes to Jared Padalecki, and even though he may not be the be all end all in past trivia and knowledge, it seems to him that that’s become a fact that has been proven time and time again.

”God, I just wish I could remember,” Jensen frowns, sighing.

He presses his beer bottle against his forehead as Chris signals for the waitress and subsequently, another round, as he mutters, “Well I wish I could forget.”

 

.

 

Jared spends two full weeks in Vancouver, but Jensen’s memory never resurfaces despite the fact that was what Jared had been pipe-dreaming about ever since waking up that morning with a hazy morphine hangover clouding his head.

They spend most of the two weeks together, and Jared finds himself telling Jensen all of the good things, really only has to catch himself whenever he goes to touch him or kiss him or tell him about all of the things they had together while Jared was dreaming.

When he was coma-white during his freaky 1 in 3 chance occurrence.

Chris heads back to Los Angeles after a week and change, making sure Jared still knows he’s an exceptional fuck up and that if he dicked around with Jensen anymore, there would be dire consequences. And, this time, Jared gets it. Maybe he really hadn’t when his plane touched down that first moment, but by the second round trip that had a set of little boys following him, he thinks he gets it now even more than Chris might.

”If I didn’t care about him after all this,” Jared had asked Chris, standing outside of Jensen’s house one night in the haze of late summer. “Do you really think I’d still be here?”

The look Chris levelled at him had been inconsequential, but more than what he said, Jared thought that maybe Chris got him for the first time in a long time just by how he said it.

 

.

 

”You ever have a dream so real it makes your heart break when you realize it ain’t?” Jared asks him one night, when they’re hanging out TV-side in Jensen’s living room, with the fire on and not a child in sight. Makes Jared’s chest ache deep.

This isn’t how it should be, someone says to him, deep inside.

Jensen looks over from his position spread across the other couch and nods carefully, looking so damn sincere in his movements that Jared thinks for a real honest second he might split and puke up all over Jensen’s new coffee table.

”Yeah,” He answers finally, quietly, even though the expression still crept across says more than enough. “More than you’d think, actually.”

 

.

 

The first day they’d met each other was the one that Jared had realized he was gonna go down when it came to Jensen Ackles.

Cowboy, that’s what Jensen had called him for the first couple weeks, just because all he’d bothered to know about Jared by that point was that he was pretty and from Texas. And, from what Jared had come to understand about city limits and all that, in Dallas, that was what you called people like that when you didn’t know them too well.

Jared used to smile at the nickname regardless, used to like how Jensen would look whenever he said it, with that crinkle around his eye harnessed by the sarcastic timbre in his voice.

Quickly Jared had retaliated when he started calling Jensen bandy leg, just cause he liked to see the way Jensen’s eyebrow flicked up when he quirked a smile in Jared’s direction in sheer appreciation for the size of his balls, calling somebody a name like that. Bandy leg had turned into knock-knees, chicken bone, china doll, and, on one memorable occasion, foreskin face.

By the time the whole foreskin face thing came about they were only two steps away from falling into bed together anyways, so Jared hadn’t felt so bad about it at the time. Actually, by the time they were skirting around the bed, Jared could have written out a damn phone book on all of the names he’d called Jensen.

Jared thinks about all of this while he’s trying to fall asleep in his hotel room, two more days down the pipeline. He files it all away how he’s gonna tell Jensen about it tomorrow, and even though his mattress is cold and thin and there’s nobody there next to him, Jared can’t help but find himself smiling at the memory anyways.

 

.

 

Here’s the truth:

Lately, Jensen has been remembering a lot more than he’d bit to let on to anybody, Chris and Jared included. Cause, looking at Jared, watching that boy smile back at him and raise his eyebrows when he laughed, damn it all to hell if it didn’t bring back a flooding waterfall full of shit he might not have remembered else ways.

He’s standing in his bathroom going on three weeks after Jared dented his refrigerator, looking at the wrinkles by his eyes that he knows he didn’t have five years ago, the frown lines at his mouth and the way his bottom lip is starting to chap even when the weather isn’t cold. And he damned well remembers these moments in his life that make his heart full stop, this full warm body flush that has only ever lead back to Jared.

Chris keeps telling him what he refers to as the truth, that Jared fucked him two ways and then high-tailed it out of Canada as soon as a door propped itself open in L.A. And he probably had, because he knows Chris wouldn’t make that shit up full knowing the repercussions, but Jensen can’t figure out what way sideways is when Jared looks at him like he does, when they’re having a couple of beers and he just looks so plainly sad all of a sudden.

Like someone kicked his dog and then took his best friend away.

”All the things you deserve, Jensen,” He remembers his momma told him once, right after the divorce came. He thinks he’d called her in the middle of the night cause god, did he ever miss his momma sometimes. “You just deserve so much more than you have. Your daddy wants you to be happy, he’s worried about you.”

And now, a slow leak of things he was supposed to forget trickling down the stem of his brain as he stands unarmed in front of his bathroom mirror. Things that make his shoulders tingle, his vision cross. It’s a feeling that makes him think that his momma might’ve been right.

 

.

 

”Okay, you’re gonna have to level with me here, man,” Jensen says, half-smiling as he brushes the popcorn salt from his hands and accidentally catches eyes with the waitress as she walks past. His vision turns back to Jared, who is already looking back at him, still and always has been, would be the better answer. Jensen’s half-smile turns into a full smirk. “And remember that this is coming from the guy with half a brain.”

Jared quirks his lips like he doesn’t really think it’s all that funny.

”On the level,” He says, instead of picking at it.

The bar lights behind Jared swim around his head, giving him some kind of foggy halo that makes Jensen’s belly start trying to wrangle in on itself.

”Why’d you do it the way you did?” Jensen asks, twisting his beer bottle around. It leaves a round condensation mark on the table top.

Do or die time, Jensen thinks to himself, as his pulse starts to race. The moment where Jared can make shit as right as it gets or end it all with a lie.

”That’s a loaded question,” Jared says, after a moment of heavy silence. He presses his thumb against the lip of the bottle, making a popping noise as he looks across the table at Jensen. “I wasn’t thinking about you when I left, I. I wasn’t thinking about anything but myself, and to be honest with you,” He laughs like that’s something he hasn’t said in a long time, though it ends up looking more like a grimace in the end. “If I had never come back, I would probably still feel the same way.”

Jensen nods, feeling oddly justified. He’s been waiting for this moment five years too long.

”What changed?” He asks, as a dime-a-dozen explicit rap song comes over the speakers.

Cringing over the first verse, Jared shifts a little on his chair and makes a face.

”Everything changed,” He says, voice breaking at the end. Jensen raises his eyebrows. “I don’t know why I thought I didn’t need you anymore. All I was thinking about was myself, and my career, and… me, again.”

Jensen kind of laughs and raises his eyebrows, eyes coasting down to his drink before they snap up back to Jared’s face. Jared doesn’t look him in the eye.

”I hadn’t thought about you much, until all of a sudden you just weren’t there anymore, man, and I, I just…” He trails off and shakes his head, chin lifting to look Jensen back in the face. “The thought of you not existing at all anymore scared the shit outta me.”

Taking another swig of his beer, Jensen looks off to the side, watches one of the waitresses leaning over another table to give a patron his bill.

”Didn’t notice me ‘til I was gone,” He crooked smiles, eyes trailing back over to Jared. Jared’s lips are all twisted as he sucks on his mouthful of beer, one shoulder raising. “That it, huh?”

Jared swallows and taps his fingers along the table top. “I was so drugged up on my flight up here I’d almost convinced myself I was going crazy.” He laughs abruptly, awkwardly, and palms his forehead. “Like, white suit crazy.”

”Well,” Jensen supplies, mouth twisting.

Smiling for real, Jared shrugs again. “I tried to see you first thing, but Chris put a stop to that quick.”

”Yeah, he does that,” Jensen frowns.

Jared leans back and fiddles around with the folded drink napkin, eyes trained on the small movement. “Yeah, well. I listened right up until you disappeared outta that last photo I had of you.” His eyes flicker up to catch Jensen’s momentarily. “That was terrifying, actually. I snapped, and when I got to your place Chris was there.”

”And I know the rest,” Jensen supplies, frowning a little as he thumbs at his beer bottle.

Nodding, Jared scratches the nape of his neck and repeats, “And you know the rest. And, man, I don’t even know,” He sighs, running a hand through his hair and looking big-eyed at the table. “I had this really fucked up dream, and I… I guess I didn’t know how much I still needed you until I realized I still did.”

Jensen sits quiet, watching Jared’s face. The asshole Jensen had fought with, the complete Hollywood d-bag he’s seen in the papers and on TV the last couple of years isn’t at all the guy sitting here in front of him now. This is a guy expecting to get his heart broken again, a truly unhappy man who came up here with one set of intentions but ended up getting turned around ass-backwards in the process.

”Yeah, well,” Jensen nods, and licks the popcorn salt off of his bottom lip. Jared finally looks up from his spot on the ground. “I think I know what you mean.”

Quiet falls over them both for a few long moments, both lost in their own thoughts until Jensen finally sighs and runs a hand over the crown of his head.

”My doctor said that if I didn’t get rid of everything that reminded me of you, the procedure wouldn’t be complete,” He says.

Jared doesn’t say anything.

”And I…” Jensen trails off and coasts his gaze to look from Jared’s face to a spot just safely tucked behind his head. He purses his lips and then says, “I remembered the first time I saw you this morning.”

Jared’s pulse stutters to a stop and his palms start to sweat. He doesn’t want to get ahead of himself, he doesn’t want to start with the false hopes, but…

”I remember some other stuff, too. Mostly little things, I guess he just missed it the first time around, but I,” Jensen interrupts himself and laughs, humourless. “I just never told him.”

Blinking fast, trying to be a grown man and not cry right here, Jared looks at the ground and then back at Jensen’s face.

”And I just wanted you to know that, I guess,” Jensen finishes, shrugging. They look each other dead in the eye, even. “That it’s not all gone.”

Jared nods and manages to wet his lips, still blinking away the stray tears in his eyes.

”Okay,” He tells Jensen, the guy he would actually bend over backwards for still, the guy he might swim to the bottom of the ocean to find. He doesn’t know how he could possibly verbalize the feeling flopping around in the pit of his stomach, so he manages a smile that actually feels a lot more like a grimace would, and says, “That’s good.”

Jensen sighs, like Jared has single handedly lifted a weight off of his back and strapped it to his own instead.

”Yeah,” He nods. Maybe Jared has. “It really is.”

They stare at each other over the beer sticky table top as they finish off their drinks, staying like that, stuck, until last call.

As far as Jared is concerned, now they’ve got all the time in the world.

 

.

 

He flies back to the states three nights later, on an early morning flight that Jensen drives him to the airport to board. They half-hug at the gates and Jensen waves him off, half-smile on his face that sticks in Jared’s mind well over Oregon state.

The on-flight movie hardly serves as a distraction to his thoughts, moments that sting him sharp and deep now that his guard is completely down.

Now when he thinks of Jensen, he regrets every terrible thing that he ever said or did or thought about him. He regrets the first fight he remembers provoking and making the call to draft up the first set of divorce papers.

Two paparazzi greet him at LAX, and Jared actually smiles at them, realization settling deep in his stomach that he’s the guy who’s been given the second chance. He and Jensen aren’t dating again, they aren’t even close to best friends territory yet, but it seems like they’re both trying, and that’s more than Jared could ask for.

So they take their photos, surprised at the easy way Jared moves along the sidewalk with a half-smile on his face. He doesn’t even bother to block them with a newspaper, because for the first time he doesn’t have one bad feeling to hide.

The next morning when he wakes up in his own bed, he can’t find a single headline about his touch-down in Hollywood. For the first time in a long time, Jared is the good guy again.

Things feel different, to be on this side of the line again.

 

.

 

”Hawaii, 2012,” Jensen says first thing, when Jared flips open his cellphone on the third ring.

Jared laughs to nobody in particular, and moans, “No.”

”Oh yeah,” Is the reply he gets, Jensen sounding about as amused as ever. Jared alternates between smiling and frowning as he spoons a huge portion of steamed veggies into his plastic container. “So, this is what I’ve got -- sixth anniversary, we fly down separately because of your schedule.”

Shaking his head, Jared side-steps a PA making a narrow dive for a can of Red Bull, and tries to close his dinner one-handed. “This is an official entry on my list of events I don’t want to remember.”

”You call me two days after I check-in to tell me you’re not going to make it after all,” Jensen continues, completely disregarding Jared’s statement. “God, that anniversary was awesome.”

Jared grabs an energy drink with the crook of his elbow and says, “I think that’s one of the few I genuinely apologized for.”

”I lied to my mother and said we were up there a week,” Jensen says, which makes Jared’s stomach gurgle in unease. “Yeah. She would’ve really loved you for that one.”

Flipping his bangs off of his forehead, Jared starts working his way through the production crowd, offering a nod of the head to the director as they bump into each other in passing.

”Forget about Hawaii,” Jared smiles, reaching his trailer. He traps his cellphone between his chin and shoulder as he bounces up the stairs, shifting his dinner to the other hand so he can successfully open the door. “I was thinking that you should come and hang out with me down here for a while.”

Jensen is quiet for a minute, the only sound Jared’s trailer door swinging closed. For a moment, his stomach dips and his heart triple-times.

”Why, you got some plans that involve me?” He finally asks, sounding amused as Jared lets out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. It comes out in a huff as he sets his things on the dinette table and half shrugs out of his jacket.

Laughing along with Jensen, he feels relief flood back into his shoulders as he drops down into the moderately uncomfortable sofa.

”You haven’t seen my place yet, that’s all,” Jared lies. “I got this theatre system I haven’t used yet, and an infinity pool. I haven’t used that yet, either. I haven’t used either of them.”

Jensen snickers again, quiet down the line, and asks, “Are you trying to impress me?”

”Actually,” Jared starts, about as sure as he’s ever said anything as he cracks his drink open one-handed and sets his chicken and vegetables down on the seat beside him. “I decided that you’re so out of my league now I don’t think that’d even work.”

Up there, at home in Vancouver, Jensen falls quiet, real quiet this time, heart thumping resolutely in his chest. This is a moment he will remember.

”So, I’m hoping against the odds that you just happen to like me the way I am,” There’s an odd, gentle tone to Jared’s voice now, that Jensen can’t help but place as honesty. Something that he hasn’t heard in a long time.

Jared doesn’t know it, but Jensen’s heart takes a minute to flip flop in his chest. This is the second chance they’ve both been waiting to play with each other, finally the winning hand in a long streak of near misses.

”I could try to impress you though, if that would help,” Jared finally sighs, sounding put-out as he takes a bite of his chicken.

That gets a quick, startled laugh out of Jensen as he listens to the sound of Jared chewing.

”How about I come down at the end of the month,” Jensen reasons, and Jared almost chokes on his food at the slight opportunity. “And we start with that.”

Jared makes a quick recovery and manages to nod fervently even though he’s all alone.

”Starting there sounds good,” He agrees, spearing a piece of grilled carrot.

The sound of Jensen’s channel surfing resumes, and then, “I am out of your league, though, you’re right.”

”Asshole,” Jared laughs, and then pretends to hang up the phone.

.

 

_you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  
\- jeremiah 29:13_


End file.
